


Less Than Human

by Fandoms_Everywhere_United



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Amputation, Banter, Bonding, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Angst, M/M, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Oblivious Lance (Voltron), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Keith (Voltron), Serious Injuries, because I live for that trope, nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 21:58:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15850191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandoms_Everywhere_United/pseuds/Fandoms_Everywhere_United
Summary: Keith and Lance are captured by the Galra Empire, are thrown into the Arena, and are forced to fight one another.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone!!! This is the 'big' thing that I've been working on!!! Feel free to check out the rest of the works in this collection. Enjoy Less Than Human:

“And _that’s_ strike seven.” Keith annunciated his words with a glancing blow to Lance’s side. The dulled training blades still sent a thrum through his body. Lance smiled as his attack went through flawlessly and he landed a direct, albeit cheap, hit on Keith’s leg.

“Does that count as a strike?” Lance asked, trying to keep his smile from overwhelming his face. “I think that that should totally count as a strike.” His bangs dropped into his eyes again, and he brushed them to the back of his head, hoping that his sweat would keep them slicked back for a little while longer.

Keith held up his hands to stave off any more attacks that probably weren’t going to come. “I think that you’re trying to trick me into going easy on you.” He bent over his knees and let the sweat drip down from his face. “And that’s not going to happen.”

The blue paladin rolled his eyes and tapped Keith’s padded back with his training sword. “I would never!” He laughed. “I’m just trying to score at least one strike on you.” He continued tapping Keith’s back until _finally_ a gloved hand snapped out and caught the dull blade before it could hit him again.

“If you want that point.” Keith spoke softly, a teasing light playing in his eyes, “Then you’ll have to take it from me.” He pulled the blade from Lance’s hands with a flourish, but Lance had a better hold on the handle as he had thought, and the movement brought the two much closer than anticipated.

They could feel the heat radiating off of each other’s bodies in waves. Lance might have been losing, but he was making sure that Keith had to work for the points he scored. For a moment, all the two of them could concentrate on was the silence of the training deck broken only by their heavy breathing.

Lance felt his face warm from the proximity, and he saw the other’s light up as well. _He must be exhausted_ Lance thought. _His face usually isn’t this red_.

He almost stopped breathing when Keith started to close the distance between them, his face getting closer and closer and closer until… it passed him, and Keith’s lips were _so close_ to his ear when he whispered softly. “This is strike eight.”

And Lance felt the sword hit him square on the back. For a moment, he was too stunned to move. What had that been? Keith had spun away from him instantly after he had struck home. Wasn’t he missing… whatever that had been?

Lance shook his head to rid it of his thoughts. “That was one-hundred percent cheating on your part.” He defended. “If this were a real fight-”

“If this were a real fight,” Keith interrupted. “Then I would have sliced my fingers off, and you would have stabbed me through the heart.” He shrugged. “This isn’t a real fight though; voluntary touches don’t count.”

“When did we decide that ‘voluntary touches don’t count’?” Lance demanded, although there was a smile playing across his lips. Their earlier proximity was all but forgotten in his mind. “I thought we decided on ‘anything that would cause serious injury counts’.”

Keith waved a hand dismissively, and he walked over to where they had placed their drinks earlier. “I made it up right now.” He took a swig from his water bottle and continued. “Besides, that wouldn’t have caused a serious injury.”

“Ummm… Excuse me.” Lance said as he followed Keith over to their break area, “But I think that your fingers being cut off would count as a ‘serious injury’.” He put air quotes around the last words of his sentence.

The other rolled his eyes like the answer was obvious and sunk to the floor against the wall, “It was my _left_ hand. My right hand is what I handle my sword with. So it is not a serious injury, and any other arguments you have are,” He ran his hand out horizontally. “Nullified.” He smiled up at Lance victoriously.

Lance scowled good-naturedly down at him. He tried to drink and glare at the same time, which only succeeded in him spilling half of the water he was trying to drink down his shirt. He turned his glare to the bottle he held in his hand while Keith busted up laughing.

Getting Keith to laugh had been one of Lance’s main goals when they started hanging out more. Honestly, the guy needed to find some way to lighten up, and if that was going to require Lance spilling water on himself, he would upend an entire tub. But he couldn’t let Keith know that, could he?

“Oh, shut _up_.” He laughed and took the cap off of his water bottle. “I’m trying to be mad at you, mullet.” Without hesitating any further, he wet his fingers and flicked the water off and into Keith’s face.

The former red paladin sputtered and glared up at Lance while he wiped the drops from his face, “And what was that for?” He asked sarcastically. “Why are you being mad at me for again?”

Lance scoffed, “Ummm… you completely beating me at something I suggested?”

Keith nodded, then closed his eyes and reclined with his hands behind his head, “If that’s the case, then I’m not sorry.”

“I am offended.” Lance said as he fought to keep a smile off of his face, “I asked to learn, not be beat to a pulp.” He poured a bit of water into the lid and splashed it at the black paladin who wrinkled his nose slightly in discomfort.

He shook his head to dry it and sent droplets flying, “What is it that you told me when we were playing on the gaming system? Get good?” He shrugged, “Seems like a reasonable response.

Lance turned and put his head in his hands, “Oh no, I knew that was going to come back and bite me later.”

While his back was turned, Keith silently popped the cap off of his bottle and filled it to the top. Right as he was about to send the contents flying, Lance turned around, and Keith made an awkward move to keep from spilling. He brought the cap to his lips in an unconvincingly casual move, pretending to drink.

The red paladin narrowed his eyes, and he ostentatiously poured more into his cap and brought it up to his mouth, “I see what you’re doing.”

Keith lifted an eyebrow innocently, “I am drinking my water. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you are.” He answered slyly, “I am also drinking water.” He took a tiny sip of his, trying to make a point.

They both grinned and simultaneously flung their caps at each other. They didn’t even keep a hold on them, they flung the entire lid and all of its contents.

“Oh my god.” Lance laughed as he was partially drenched, “Your lid is like twice the size of mine! That’s so not fair.”

Keith laughed again, and Lance felt his spirits rise a little farther, “I thought you said that size doesn’t matter?”

Lance sputtered helplessly as his face heated up comically. “That’s- I mea- You- _Keith_!” He was finally able to squeak out, “That’s _not_ what I meant, and you know it, you bastard.” Keith was too busy laughing to reply, and his face was only getting redder and redder.

“Your face.” Keith wheezed out, “Was the best thing I have seen in a long time. Oh my gosh, that was glorious.”

The former blue paladin narrowed his eyes and dumped the rest of his water on Keith’s head. “There, now we’re even.”

“Even?” Keith looked at him, still laughing, through his dripping bangs. “What are you getting even for?” He shook his hand out and flicked the excess into Lance’s face. 

The former blue paladin sputtered. “ _Excuse you_! I can’t believe the disrespect I’m getting.” He turned around so that his back was to Keith in faux distress, “First you tell me that ‘voluntary touches don’t count’ and then you turn around and use my own dirty trick against me.” He sighed heavily. “I can’t believe you.”

Keith hummed and nodded his head. “Hey, we never said that we _couldn’t_ make up new rules as we went along.” Lance turned back to face him in indignation, and Keith struck. He quickly flung the contents at the red paladin.

Lance stood gaping, his arms held out to the side to keep the rest of his body somewhat dry. He was absolutely soaked. Water pooled around his feet and he raised his head to look from his dripping wet shirt to Keith who was still on the floor in a smaller puddle of his own. “Oh, you’re in for it now, mullet.”

Keith looked at him innocently as he scooped up the water as best he could with his hands, “I have no clue what you could possibly mean, sharpshooter.” His eyes darkened slightly, issuing a challenge.

Lance’s eyes flitted about the room, there was a considerable lack of garden hoses here, and the water vat was a few feet away. He made a break for it just as Keith launched himself off the floor, spraying as much water as he could into the air.

The two of them hadn’t gotten two steps before Keith slammed into Lance and sent both of them to the ground, slipping on the wet surface. Lance hit the ground hard, and his breath burst out of him.

Keith had his arms wrapped around Lance’s waist, and they were both lying in a pool of water that had spilled. “Get off of me, Keith.” Lance requested, trying to dislodge him from around him.

“Never,” Keith muttered and squeezed his arms around Lance harder, ensuring that there was no escape. “It’s your fault anyway.”

Lance shook his head and flopped his body, trying to splash Keith with more water, but he only succeeded in getting himself wetter. “How is it _my_ fault?” He asked. “You’re the one who knocked me over!”

Keith loosened his hold slightly and raised his head to look at Lance. “You struck first.”

“I didn’t strike first.” Lance glared down at Keith. “You struck first.” He reached down and touched his finger to Keith’s nose. Keith only glared while Lance smiled sweetly. “You struck seven times if I remember correctly.”

The black paladin opened his mouth to refute him, but he closed it just as quickly. He stuck his tongue out in defiance. “I struck fairly _eight_ times. You struck out of turn.”

Lance rolled his eyes and pushed Keith’s head away jokingly. “Oh, be quiet.” He laughed. “I did _not_ strike out of turn… I just started… before you…?” The last few words came out as a question as if he were trying to get away with something that everyone knew he did.

“Do you wanna try digging a bigger hole for yourself?” Keith asked with a smirk playing on his lips. “I’m not sure if this one is big enough for all of your lies.”

“I’m not lying!” Lance defended. “I’m just… bending the truth slightly.”

“The truth is that it’s your fault we’re both soaked.” The black paladin said and rested his head on Lance’s stomach to look up at him, and even though his chin jutted uncomfortably into Lance’s gut, he didn’t complain.

“ _That_ is a lie.” Lance said, and he tried to sit up, but Keith just glared at him.

For a few minutes, they laid there in silence. Lance was staring up at the ceiling, and Keith used his stomach like a pillow so that it was more comfortable for both of them. They both found themselves falling asleep until a violent shiver wracked Keith’s body.

Lance raised his head. “What was that?” He asked.

Keith buried his face into the still damp material of Lance’s shirt to hide his reddening face. “Nothing. That was nothing at all.”

He felt a smile spread across his face while he stared down at the black paladin. “Oh my god, you’re cold.” He realized.

“‘M not,” Keith mumbled but the tips of his ears reddened quickly, and he shivered again and tried to leech more warmth from Lance’s body. “These aren’t shivers of cold, these are shivers of victory.”

Lance burst out laughing. “‘Shivers of victory’” He mocked. “I think that’s a first.”

“No, it’s not.” He yawned, “It happens all the time to me. Each time I beat you. I just…” He shivered again. “Shiver in victory.”

He rested his head back on Lance’s abdomen for a moment before his stomach growled incredibly loud in his ear. He raised his head to quirk an eyebrow at Lance, whose face was now as red as his lion.

“And you think shivering is embarrassing.” Keith monotoned while he poked Lance’s belly button.

The red paladin slowly covered his face with his hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Cold.”

“I also don’t know what you’re talking about Mr. My-Stomach-Is-A-Whale.” Lance’s stomach growled again to prove Keith’s point.

“Do you…” Keith trailed off. “Do you maybe want to eat something?” He suggested. “I think it would alleviate some of the whale-stomach syndrome you’ve got going on.” He smiled as Lance only turned redder.

“You know, I would probably be able to if I didn’t have the world’s heaviest shivering Keith on top of me.” Lance looked pointedly down at the black paladin.

He shrugged, which made for quite a sight as he still had his arms wrapped around Lance’s waist. “I guess you’ll just have to do something about that, won’t you?” He challenged.

Lance’s eyes darkened considerably. “Is that a challenge, mullet?” He asked, “Because that sounded an awful lot like a challenge.” Lance was never one to back down from a challenge, especially one involving Keith.

“It’s whatever you make it out to be, Sharpshooter.” Keith sighed.

“Hold on a second,” Lance said, trying to reason with him. “You don’t gain anything from this! You’re cold!”

The black paladin nodded gravely. “So you’re going for dialogue to distract me? It’s not going to work.”

Lance scoffed, “I’m being serious here!” He tried to wiggle his way free of Keith’s grip, but the man was like a leech. “It’s a lose-lose situation here! You just get colder, and I just get hungrier.”

“Are you giving up?” Keith asked innocently. “Those sound like the words of someone who is giving up.” He looked up at Lance and initiated his best flirty look. He even batted his eyelashes, and _why were his eyelashes so long?_ That wasn’t right. That wasn’t fair.

Lance was supposed to be the one who flirted. That was like, his thing, even more than being the cool ninja sharpshooter. He was loverboy extraordinaire. He was Lance McLain! Keith having longer eyelashes than him and being able to _use_ them correctly was completely uncalled for because if Keith joined the dating pool, there was no way that Lance would stand a chance.

“No.” He shook his head and tried to push Keith’s traitorous eyelashes further from him. “You’re not allowed to do that anymore. You’re too attractive. I forbid it. You don’t get to steal my game. You can’t come in here and bat your eyelashes and expect me to be alright. You would get all the girls and leave none for me.”

Keith’s expression soured, and he lost his smile at the last sentence. He pouted slightly. “Lance, has anyone ever told you that you’re dense?” The red paladin shook his head. “Well, you are.” Keith relinquished his hold of Lance’s waist and got up.

“Hah!” Lance shouted as he thrust both fists into the air. “I win!” He bounced over to where Keith was and threw his arms around his neck.

Keith smiled sadly and placed a gloved hand on Lance’s arm. “Yeah, but feels more like I lost this one.” he shook his head as if to clear it. “Anyways, let’s get some food in your whale stomach.” 

“Ugh.” Lance groaned and rolled his eyes while letting his body go limp so that Keith was carrying both of their weight. “Do I really need food?”

“Technically, you can go the rest of your life without eating.” He helpfully supplied. “But if you want to live on for longer than a week, you need food.” He walked towards the kitchen with Lance’s feet dragging behind him, and Lance’s arms silently trying to choke him, but he had never been happier.

Hunk was busying himself in the kitchen. Various bottles of who knows what alien substances were littered on the counter. There was a glob of food goo on the counter, and Hunk was standing with his back to the two of them. He added something that looked suspiciously like a limp carrot, but green into a pot of bubbling liquid.

Keith dropped Lance to the ground, but underestimated the grip on his neck and went down faster than a bag of rocks. “We’re here.” He grumbled, because even though he had been the second to fall, and he had been pulled down, he had landed underneath Lance. He didn’t know how he did it. Every logical thought spoke that he should be on top, but here he was. Underneath Lance.

“Huuuuuuuuunk,” Lance whined, and he was so loud in Keith’s ear that he had to turn away. “Please, buddy. You gotta help me.” He reached an arm out dramatically and let it fall to the floor with a dull _thump_. “I’m literally dying.”

The yellow paladin rolled his eyes but smiled. “And what’s the cause this time?” He asked while he chopped something up and slid off of the cutting board into the pot. Hunk frowned after he added it, and he put a lid on the pot. He finally turned around to face the heap of paladin in the doorway.

“Starvation.” Lance wailed. “Keith had to drag me here because I was so weak.”

“Why are you two wet?” Hunk asked curiously as he picked Lance up like he was a feather and threw him over his shoulder.

Lance screeched and wrapped his limbs around his friend, successfully gaining leech-like qualities on par with Keith’s. “Why is the stuff in that pot neon blue?” He retorted. “I’ll eat a lot of things, but I’m not sure about that.”

“You first.” Hunk said. “We can talk about that work in progress later.” He bent over to let Lance off, but he stayed firmly latched on.

Keith lifted himself off the floor with much more effort than it really should have taken. “You might need a crowbar for that one.” He smiled then went over to the boiling pot, which was, in fact, neon blue and appeared to be boiling without a heat source. “And you might need a professional for this one.”

Lance detached himself from his friend and peeked over Keith’s shoulder to look at the substance. “First of all,” He started, “ _I’m_ not the one he’d need a crowbar for.” He lightly flicked Keith’s ear. “And second of all, I’m thinking this needs to be packaged up with nuclear waste or something.”

He took the top of it off and wrinkled his nose. “It smells like something died in here, man. What did you put in it?” He stuck his index finger in it curiously. “Huh, it’s not even hot. That’s weird.” When he tried to pull his finger out, the substance stuck to it and clung like extra strong slime.

“Haha!” He wiggled his finger and watched as the thick string wobbled back and forth with his movements. “Keith, come check this out!”

“Lance, if that ends up on any part of me, my clothes included, then I’m de-inviting you from the space family.” Keith threatened and stayed exactly where he was.

The red paladin rolled his eyes and tried to take the stuff off of his finger, but it wouldn’t budge. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.” He waved his hand around, but that only succeeded in getting more of his fingers stuck. “It’s not letting go of me! Hunk, what did you make?”

Hunk shrugged. “I don’t know what I did. The last time it did this, I had to use an acid to get it off of me.”

“ _Acid_!?”

“The last time?” Keith asked. “How many times has this happened?”

Lance gaped at their leader. “Are we going to ignore the fact that he said acid was the only way to get it off?”

Hunk rifled through a few cupboards before he got a glass container filled with something that looked like water. “Here.” He tossed it to Lance who caught it easily and quickly poured it in the pot. “Maybe like three or four times. I’m still trying to figure out what does it though. Every time it does this, I just send it out the airlock.”

“Hunk, it’s not coming off. _It’s not coming off_.” He waved his hand and tried to wipe it off on the edge of the pot, but the slime just stuck to the pot as well.

“Relax, freaking out only gets you in worse trouble because it sticks to more and more of you.” Hunk grabbed the bottle and poured it directly on Lance’s hand. The slime immediately dissolved off of his hand. “Great. Acid works as well as it did last time.”

The red paladin’s eyes were blown wide, and he practically tripped over himself to get to the faucet. “You just poured acid on my hand!? Am I going to die? Am I going to lose my hand? This is my shooting hand, Hunk. How am I supposed to be the team Sharpshooter if I can’t even shoot?”

“Shoot with your left hand?” Keith suggested.

“Lance, calm down. You’re not going to lose your hand.” Hunk comforted holding up his own. “It’s just vinegar.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back over to the pot to glare at it. He picked up the spoon and spun the stuff around the pot idly. “You know.” He started. “This stuff looks a lot like the slime I played with as a kid, and-”

Keith interrupted him. “Wait. What did you play with as a kid?”

“Slime.”

Keith looked back at him blankly.

“You know. You take glue and the powdered soap that begins with a ‘b’ that I can never remember, and you mix them together? There was another “recipe” that called for contact lens solution and shaving cream as well? You never played with slime?”

“No. I never played with slime.” Keith monotoned. “I played with knives.”

Lance pursed his lips. “Well, whatever. Keith had no childhood. Anyways this stuff looks and feels a lot like the slime stuff we made back home.”

Hunk shrugged. “If you’re feeling nostalgic, there are about three other potfuls out in space somewhere.” He turned around to write down everything that had gone into the pot, and Keith joined him to get a list of plants to ask Coran about.

They both turned around when Lance started wretching behind them. He was bent over beside the pot and desperately rubbing at his tongue with a towel. “Oh my god.” He breathed heavily. “It tastes even worse than glue and soap.”

There was silence before the other two burst out, “ _You ate it_!?” Keith asked. “What if it had been poisonous?” At the same time that Hunk asked: “Why in the world would you think that that was a good idea?”

“Ummm…” Lance looked at them as if it were obvious, although he had the towel pressed to his tongue so his answer of. “To see what it tasted like.” It sounded more like: “Eh thee wha ih athed ike.”

“Paladins.” Allura’s voice came over the coms before the two of them could be further astounded by Lance’s absence of survival instincts. “Please report to the Bridge immediately. I repeat/ Please report to the Bridge immediately.”

The three of them sighed heavily and started to head to the door before Keith called out. “Hey, Lance? Would you put the lid back on your slime friend? I don’t want it somehow escaping.”

Lance scoffed as he put the lid on ‘It’s not like it’s alive’ came out, “Ith noth ike ith a-ithe” Hunk shrugged. “Ith noth a-ithe ith ih? Unk! Unk!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy, yes? Great, fluff? Great.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> It's not going to last.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm back!!! I hope you like the newest installment of Less Than Human! Things are getting more exciting among the paladins!

The three of them quickly filed onto the bridge, Lance still holding the towel to his tongue. They were the last ones to arrive, so Allura started the briefing as soon as they got there.

A large alien face was plastered on the screen in front of them. The alien looked to be in a state of hysteria, but it was hard to tell when its body was long and smooth and its face was practically featureless. Its face was glowing a fluorescent red, and it had no nose.

Allura gestured and the image began to move. A light was pulsing red behind the alien as it began to speak in a warbling voice as if they were hearing the transmission through water. “This is Prince Bauwle the Third of the planet Yayrus begging for any assistance out there.”

An explosion rang out in the background and shook the camera significantly. While the camera survived the tremors, Bauwle was less successful. The quake shook him to the ground and his body became a fluid that disappeared from view temporarily only to reappear seconds later. His face slid to the front of the camera and he continued as if nothing had happened.

“We are currently under attack from a Galra fleet. If anyone is nearby or in the Sanilta quadrant, we beg for your help. We don’t know how long we can hold out against them, so please come as quickly as possible. This message will now repeat.” The alien moved forward to press a button and the transmission reset itself immediately.

Allura stopped the message before it could begin again and turned to face the paladins. “We just now received this message.” She began and before she could continue, Keith was already interrupting her.

“Then what’s the big hold up?” He asked. “There are people out there who are under attack.”

The princess shook her head sadly. “The signal has been circulating for over a week, almost two. The chances of this planet having held out this long are negligible. I called you up here to decide if we want to go and try and see if there are some parts of this planet that is salvageable.

“Galra attacks have reportedly been getting increasingly violent. The technology of Yayrus is primitive; they were barely able to get this broadcast out. Even then, it took almost two weeks for it to reach us. As much as I hate to say, there might not be anyone left to save.”

“There _might_ not be anyone left to save.” Lance echoed. He had dropped the towel and held it loosely in his hand. “If there’s any possibility that there is someone, then shouldn't we take the opportunity to try?”

Hunk nodded enthusiastically. “I'm with Lance on this one. I say we go for it. Besides, the signal is still being broadcast, wouldn’t the Galra have shut it off if they had beaten the planet? It makes things less complicated.”

Around the room, heads were nodding in agreement. Not one of them had any qualms about going to help Yayrus.

Allura gave a final, curt nod, riddled with authority. “It's decided then. Get to your Lions. We’re going to the Sanilta quadrant.”

~~~

Planet Yayrus was the smallest planet in its solar system. The waters were a light green color and dark blue clouds swirled over rich red land masses. It looked like a quaint planet.

It was also completely and utterly deserted.

There were no signs of life anywhere on the planet, no warmer than usual infrared spots. Just barren land as far as the castle could tell.

“Let’s head down.” Keith voiced through their com system. “See just how extensive this damage is. Maybe the life signs of these aliens are drastically different than everything else we’ve encountered.” His words sounded optimistic, but his voice didn't carry the same excitement.

There was nothing on this planet; everyone knew it, but no one had the heart to say it.

The paladins touched down in the middle of a ghost town. As soon as their feet touched the ground, they knew what they would find.

“I think I can feel the humidity through my armor, guys.” Lance tried to distract them from the abandoned town, but his heart wasn’t in it.

Keith nodded his affirmation though. “Also, be sure that you don't remove your helmet. Coran’s preliminary scans show that the atmosphere is toxic to human and Altean physiology.” He warned. “Split up and search for survivors. If you find anything or run into trouble, tell the rest of us immediately.”

They nodded and split without any remarks. The silence of the planet spoke enough for them.

Before long, Lance came along a school or something that looked like a school at least. He supposed it could have been a jail with its barred windows or even a firehouse with the poles that extended from the second story down, but something about it just screamed education to him.

He tried to walk past it, really, he did. He didn't want to think about what would have happened if the school was in session when the Galra attacked. He didn't want to think if they had gotten out or not. He wasn't prepared for that. But there was some part of him that urged him to the door and into the building, he just had to know.

It was a school. The rooms were filled with desks and every single one had a picture of an alien child stuck to it. Little markers for where the kids were to sit. They must have been incredibly young.

Lance felt droplets of moisture tickle the corners of his eyes, and a lump firmly lodged itself in his throat. He choked back his emotions unsuccessfully. His cousins were young enough when he left that they needed their pictures and names taped to their desks as reminders.

He fell to his knees, the _clank_ echoed against the walls that were decorated in different pieces of work, presumably from the kids of this room.

“Lance, is that you?” Keith’s voice called through the coms. “Are you alright?”

The red paladin’s eyes widened slightly. He had never turned his mic off and had just broadcast his irrational sobbing to the entire team. “Uh yeah, I'm… I’m fine. I just…” He trailed off and sniffled subtly, but the rest of the paladins undoubtedly heard it; at least they were courteous enough not to mention it. “I found a school.” That was enough for the others.

“I'm gonna turn my mic off for now. I'll tell you if I find anything substantial, if you need me, I can still hear you.” He flipped off his input and let the tears fall. They splattered against his face shield, which he knew he couldn't easily clean to hide the evidence from the rest of them.

He sensed more than heard someone enter the room behind him. He whirled around to confront Keith. _He had turned his input off for a reason, didn't he get that he wanted to be alone?_

Instead of the familiar white armor with red accents that he had grown to recognize on sight, there was a Galran soldier towering over him with his gun pointed directly at Lance’s heart. Paladin armor would protect him from a lot of things, he didn't think a rifle less than two feet away would be one of them.

On instinct, he reached to turn his mic back on, but the soldier knocked his hand back with the gun. “You call for them, and I'll shoot you. No questions asked you won't even have time to scream.” When Lance didn't move, he smiled. “That's what I thought.”

The red paladin’s brain was working a mile a minute.

“This is the mighty Voltron?” He couldn't move fast enough to turn his mic on, and even if he could, he still would've been shot dead. “You are brought to tears from an empty classroom.” He could use his bayard, but the time constriction was still an issue. “You were too late to get here in the first place.” He could scream, but they had split up to cover more ground; no one was close enough to hear him scream. “Pathetic.”

He was alone.

And then he wasn't.

The front door swung open and the hinges squeaked, alerting the two of them that someone new had entered the equation. “Lance?” Keith called. His voice came from the hallway, not the speakers in his helmet. “Is this where you are? No one else could find anything, so we’re gonna head out.” Why hadn’t they called through the coms? His output was still on, wasn’t it?

Lance made eye contact with the soldier in front of him. _Please_ he mouthed. He shook his head pleadingly. He would go wherever the soldier wanted him to go, the red paladin would be branded a deserter, and his team would wonder what had happened to him, just as long as Keith stayed out of this. He was too important to the team.

The Galran just smiled and moved so that he couldn’t be seen from the hall.

Lance choked on air. He needed to call out and warn Keith, but he couldn't form the words. The lump in his throat from earlier had grown considerably in size, cutting off any chance he had of warning the black paladin.

One second. Two. Three.

Keith’s footsteps got closer and closer until finally they rounded the corner and there he stood in the doorway. Worry turned to relief turned to confusion turned to realization.

The world moved in slow motion for Lance, but Keith was the fastest he had ever been. The Galran soldier took a single step forward and pivoted expertly, swung the barrel of his gun right at Keith’s chest and pulled the trigger.

The black paladin moved though. His arm had been above his head when he entered the room, but he brought it down, full force, while also stepping to the side.

_Bang_

The fastest he had moved wasn't fast enough.

Lance transformed his bayard and pulled the trigger before he had time to register exactly what was happening. _Bang_. Right between the eyes.

The soldier was down before Keith slid down the wall, leaving a bright red streak against the white paint. He groaned weakly. There was too much red on his armor.

“Keith?” He asked, cupping Keith’s limp head in his hand. Lance crouched down beside him and flipped his coms on, something he should never have turned off in the first place. “Guys, how close are you to leaving?”

“We’re ready to leave when you two get your butts over here.” Pidge’s voice replied teasingly.

“Leave now and get a healing pod ready,” Lance said, the urgency in his voice had the other three moving before they knew what was happening.

“What’s going on?” Hunk asked as he climbed into his Lion. “Is everything okay? Well, of course, everything's not okay because you need a healing pod. But is everyone still alive?”

Besides Lance, Keith groaned and his head flopped to one side. His eyelids fluttered as he tried to keep them open, but he was fighting a losing battle. The pressure that he had placed on his wound was lessening and he winced when Lance pressed his hand there.

“For the time being.” The red paladin answered helpfully.

Allura’s voice crackled over the system. “What type of an injury are we talking here? Broken bone, concussion, paper cut, skinned alive?”

Hunk groaned, sounding uneasy. “Ugh, skinned alive? I did not need that visual.”

“It's a legitimate question.” She defended. “Anyway, Lance, what type of injury?” Lance could hear Blue, Green, and Yellow launching off in the distance.

Lance lifted his hand and pulled Keith’s away from the wound, ignoring the painful spike of distress that shot through his heart when the black paladin gasped. “Gunshot wound.” Lance spoke. “It might have torn into the stomach, but I can't tell.” He replaced Keith’s hand over the wound. “Whatever antidote to the atmosphere as well, I'm not sure how well the suit can filter air when there's literally a hole in the side.”

“How did you get _shot_?” Pidge shouted.

“Not me, Keith.” Lance said. “I messed up.” He looked down at Keith, who was far paler than his usual paper white and the mess of blood on and around him. “I messed up bad.”

His internal monologue was already running strong, _Why didn't I shout a warning? Why did I turn my input off? Why didn't I leave earlier? Why wasn't I strong enough to stand up to a Galran soldier? Maybe I should have tried to turn on my mic again. If I was shot, at least we would be down an unimportant paladin, not the goddamn black paladin. Why didn't I try harder?_

Lance thought he heard Black running through the street, but it could have just as easily been Red. Only one set of thundering footsteps sought them out.

Black’s dark face appeared in front of them. She whined and called out to Keith, who hadn't stirred when she arrived. He hadn't stirred. He hadn't had any reaction when Lance put his hand back down on his injury. Frantically, Lance looked for breathing, something, anything.

Was that a steady rise and fall of his chest? He was wearing armor, there was no way to tell. He glanced around the hallway, looking for anything reflective that he might be able to get condensation from. No, he couldn’t take off Keith’s helmet. Were there breath marks on his face shield? If there were, they weren't staying long enough for Lance to see them.

Carefully, he picked Keith up. It was harder than he originally thought because Keith was _built_. He didn't look heavy, but he was pure muscle underneath the already weighty armor. Lance stumbled slightly into the wall and his limp hand fell away from his side.

Black opened her maw wide for her paladin to enter and Lance severely hoped that the Lions filtered the atmosphere into breathable air, because he couldn't stand not knowing if the body he was carrying still had a soul.

As soon as her mechanical jaws closed around them, Lance set down his friend and went for the first aid kit that was underneath the chair. Pidge had taken the time to translate the little booklet from Altean to English, and he scanned the Table of Contents for Gunshot Wound, but of course, there was no first aid for a gunshot wound.

He tossed the booklet aside and grabbed as much gauze as he could carry. Black took to the skies as carefully as she could with her precious cargo. Lance really hoped that she was filtering the atmosphere because Keith’s armor was coming off.

Piece by piece, he removed the bloodied armor, hoping against all hope that Keith would still be breathing. The last piece came off and… was that a breath? It was too small to tell. Lance took off his own glove and felt for a pulse, but he… couldn't find one.

Panicking, he wrenched off his helmet, damn the consequences, and held his ear to Keith’s chest, just as he used to do when he was little with his mom. _Do you hear the ba-dum, ba-dum, mijo? Listen carefully, and you can hear it. That's the most important thing for you. Always listen for the beats._

He would smile and nod, then. But now he couldn't hear anything. There was nothing. Keith’s chest was void of any life. He pressed his ear further down and closed his eyes, as he whispered a prayer.

And there it was, very very faint, but it was there. _Ba-bum, Ba-bum_. Lance sighed in relief and got to work bandaging the bloody hole in Keith’s side.

It was quick work, and nothing anyone would be proud of, but it kept most of the blood inside of Keith. Thatwas good enough until they got to the Castle.

Lance stood up to check how far they were from the castle when he was thrown to the ground as Black stopped moving suddenly. He looked confusedly around the cabin and reached up to pat some of her inner workings like he did to reassure both Blue and Red.

“What is it, girl? Keith’s going to be fine.” He glanced back at the other paladin’s ashen skin and shivering form. The bright red of his blood was the most color that he had. “He’ll be fine as long as we get him to the healing pod.”

He lurched forward as Black suddenly started moving backward. “Black?” He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he shivered from an imaginary chill. “What’s wrong?” He put his helmet back on.

“You guys? Hellooooo? Why is Black backing up?” Nothing. He turned his coms up, “What’s wrong? Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?” Silence. “My spidey-senses are really tingling here.”

Still nothing, when he turned the volume up further, he could hear static. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Hadn’t Pidge said something about the com system being too advanced for feedback and white noise? The only way that something like that would happen is if something was interfering with the signal. ‘ _Something or some_ one.’ They had said ominously while their glasses reflected the light in the room and they had smiled mysteriously.

The temperature in the room dropped another few degrees and Lance’s blood ran cold. He looked back at Keith who had been bandaged up to the best of his abilities. He looked the smallest that he had been in a long time, and Lance’s heart sent a spike of worry through his body.

He knew what was happening even before he saw the giant purple ship rise up in front of Black’s front window. 

The Galra had captured two Paladins of Voltron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huh... I wonder how that happened.
> 
>  
> 
> Please leave some kudos and a comment if you enjoyed! I just started college, so my motivation levels have been kinda low and this only about 50% complete... Anyway, I really hope you are enjoying this so far.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhhh......... I'm so sorry this is late. I came home for the weekend, so today was really crazy and I forgot to do it earlier when I had the time. But, hey, it's still technically Friday (at least my time).

Lance awoke to the sound of chains. Cool metal encircled his wrists and ankles, which were tied together behind his back. He felt something sticky on his forehead when he tried to raise his head. His nose exploded in pain, and he groaned as he tried to peel his eyes open only to discover a disgusting gag between his teeth and a blindfold over his eyes. 

Panic bubbled up in him and he struggled to breathe through the gag. He couldn’t see, couldn’t talk, couldn’t see, couldn’t talk, _couldn’t see, couldn’t see, couldntseecouldntseecouldntsee._ He yanked against the chains holding his wrists together, trying to pull them in front of him, but he only managed in jostling them around more.

The jangle sent his ears ringing in a steadily increasing pitch and he squeezed his eyes shut against the sound, but that didn’t change anything. He gasped and choked on the gag, taking desperate breaths through his nose. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes.

This wasn’t good, wasn’t good, wasn’t good. He was going to start crying and his nose was going to get clogged and he wasn’t going to be able to breathe and he was going to die. _He was going to die_.

Unintentionally, he heard himself emit a high-pitched whine.

“Lance?” A voice croaked out from across the room. Lance jerked violently in his binds. He knew that voice knew that voice, knew that voice. He registered distantly that he was sobbing, but he didn’t know if that was because he felt relief that he knew someone or because he was _hewasgoingtodiegoingtodiegoingtodiediediediedie-_

“Lance, is that you?” The red paladin heard chains skitter across the floor. They were getting closer to him. _Friend or foe?_ he asked himself, desperately praying for friend but all his brain was screaming was, _foe, foe, foe, foefoefoefoefoefoefoefoe-_

“It’s me.” _Who is me? Who is me? Who is me?_ “Keith.” _Who is-_ **Keith**

Tension melted from his body, and a sob was torn from him. The chains clanged against each other and they were right next to him. “Are you here?” Keith asked. “I can’t see you. They put some sort of blindfold over my eyes.” His voice sounded strained. Was he hurt?

An image of Keith sprawled out in the back of Black flashed through his memories, and he whined again. Keith should be resting. He should be in a healing pod. He should not be here.

“Are you hurt?” He asked worry laced his voice. _Am I hurt? You had a hole in your side. Am I hurt? You had a hole- Am I hurt? Am I- I am hurt? I am hurt. I am hurt, I am hurt, I am hurt. Hurt hurt hurt hurthurthurthurthurt-_

“Jesus Christ, if they hurt you, I’m going to rip them limb from limb.” The sudden change in his voice alarmed Lance. Had he imagined Keith’s worry? The black paladin groaned and jostled the chains again. Did he sit up? Is he leaning against a wall?

“Alright, let’s-” Keith sighed heavily. “Let’s see if we can talk.” He paused to think. “Do you know Morse code?” He asked.

If Lance could have glared, he would have. Why would he have spent his time learning some useless alphabet that no one used anymore? He wished he had paid attention to Pidge’s insistence that he learn at least the numbers.

“I’m gonna take that as a no.” His head thumped against something heavy. “How about… Can you tap your chains? One tap for no, two for yes?”

That might be something he could do. He shifted his shoulders so that he was laying with his back to Keith and a link of chain gripped in his hand. He rested his head back on the floor, but when he did, his vision whited out.

He gasped and choked on the gag, sending him into a coughing fit. He tried to pull his knees to his chest, but it pulled on his arms and pain he had never experienced before erupted from his arm.

“Lance! Lance! Lance, buddy, talk to me, or rattle, or whatever you can do, just give me _something_ other than a scream. Please.” Did Keith’s voice break there? No. That must just be Lance’s imagination. Had he been screaming? His arm was screaming in pain, did that count?

Weakly, Lance tapped the chain against the floor twice.

Keith sighed and settled back down. “Alright, let’s start with something I already know the answer to. Are you okay?” Silence for a few seconds and Lance hoped that Keith was interpreting that as passive aggressiveness before he tapped twice.

“Liar.” He responded easily, almost as if he were joking. “On a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt to just lay there and not move?” _tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap_. “Seven. Alright, what about when you tried to move earlier?” Silence, then the tapping began. It went above ten, under other circumstances it might have been sarcastic, but not this time.

“Thirteen?” Keith asked to clarify after they stopped, two more taps, hopefully, that was an affirmation and not adding two more on to the pain index. “Alright, just… Just, don’t… move?” He said the last part like it was a question.

Lance tried to roll his eyes, but it didn’t do him much good behind the blindfold. Don’t move? That was easy for him to say. His left bicep was throbbing painfully and he distantly remembered a gunshot. No, that wasn’t him, Keith was shot. His nose throbbed. Was he thrown to the ground? No- Memories flooded his mind.

_”Okay.” Lance said to himself more than anyone else. There was no one else to listen to him. “Okay.” He said again to calm his nerves. “This is… This is fine…” We just need to hold them off for a few minutes, and the rest of the team will be back for us._

_He felt more than heard the bay of the Galran ship close above them. Almost immediately he felt his stomach lurch to the side, the tell-tale sign that they were moving, and moving fast. Dread set in._

_He looked at Keith. You weren’t supposed to move anyone if they were unresponsive or if their injuries could be made worse. Lance had a feeling that his injuries were about to get a lot worse._

_“Okay, we just need to hold out. We just need to-” Someone knocked on the door to Black three times. Knocking was inaccurate, they were more like big booming impacts on her hull._

_Lance held his breath, maybe they could be tricked into thinking that there was no one in there. Maybe they would think that they had captured an empty Lion. “We know you’re in there, paladins.” Came a voice outside._

_Well, there goes that plan. “No one’s home.” He called out confidently. Well, he wanted to call it confident. His voice broke halfway through the sentence._

_There was murmuring outside and Lance readied his bayard. He didn’t have enough time to move Keith to a safer place if a firefight did break out. And if Keith was hit again… Lance didn’t want to think about what would happen._

_“Come out or we will come in one way or another.” The same voice from before called out. Was that...beeping on the other side? Were they preparing a bomb?_

_The red paladin ran through his options. He could open Black and just start shooting. He could stay holed up in here for who knows how long. He could try and fly Black, that was if she would even let him pilot her. Or he could… surrender._

_He glanced back at Keith who had started to shiver slightly. Lance didn’t think that they were victory shivers. He ran the options through his head again. f he surrendered, would the Galra treat Keith to keep him alive?_

_He willed his Bayard out of its weaponized form and sighed heavily. He dropped it to the ground and raised his empty hands above his head. “Alright. Alright. There’s no need for any violence.” He opened the door and made sure that the soldiers saw that he was unarmed. “Listen. Keith in there? He’s hurt bad, and the team will be much more likely to trade for his life than mine. I suggest that you try your hardest to keep him alive.”_

_Frankly, the three soldiers looked surprised that the door was opening and a Paladin of Voltron was standing there with his hands up in surrender._

_“Excuse me? Did you hear anything I said? Keith in there.” He pointed his thumb back to the black paladin. “Needs medical attention. Immediately.”_

_The soldiers looked at each other, muttering under their breath. Lance thought he heard_ trap, trust, _and_ shoot _from their conversation, but he couldn’t be sure._

_“Listen.” He interrupted them. “You can do whatever you want to me and I won’t care, just keep Keith alive.”_

_The soldiers all looked to each other before nodding. The first raised his gun and shot Lance’s left arm. His arm fell uselessly to his side and he stared at it for a millisecond before the pain caught up to him._

_He screamed and fell to his knees, trying to cradle his upper arm the best he could. Not even five seconds later, a second guard grabbed the back of Lance’s head and brought his face down on the soldier’s knee with an audible crack._

_A second wave of pain followed closely after and he brought his hands up to feel how bad the damage was, but his left arm_ wouldn’t move _._

_Someone chuckled above him and he weakly raised his head to look for the source. “Is this the best Voltron has to offer?” A soldier asked before he raised the stock of his gun and brought it down on Lance’s temple. He heard his mind feebly answer before darkness overtook him._

_No._

“Lance, goddamnit. I need you to answer me!” Keith yelled and his voice echoed against the bare walls that they were being held in.

Slowly, Lance took the link of chain in his hand and tapped it against the floor twice.

There was silence in the room for a few seconds before Keith let out a sigh. “Please, just don’t go silent. Please.” Lance paused for a moment. Was that worry in Keith’s voice? No, that couldn’t be it. It must have just been his wounds getting to him.

Or was he afraid?

No, that wasn’t right. Keith wasn’t afraid, he could never be afraid. He was the black Paladin of Voltron, the fearless leader. It was right there in the title. But…

Fighting against the lump in his throat, Lance tapped the floor in what he hoped was a reassuring way. 

The tiny sound was the only noise in the air aside from Keith’s sudden heavy sigh. “You absolute-” But he couldn’t finish, because right then the door slammed open, the sound deafened their ears and made them both jump in surprise.

“Good, it looks like you’re awake.” A voice spoke. It sounded slightly feminine in nature, but the slight undertones were all that attested to gender. It sounded like gravel being crushed together in a vague replication of speech more than anything.

“No response, huh? This might not be as fun as I had hoped it would be.” The voice continued. “I had hoped for a bit more reaction.” There was a pause as if it was waiting for something. Whatever it had been waiting for, it must have either happened or the owner of the voice had given up.

“Let’s start this out with some introductions, shall we?” The voice continued, “My name is Tlatka and I am the second most powerful Druid in the Galra Empire.” Although he couldn’t see them, Lance knew that whatever lips this Druid had were curled upwards in a proud smirk. “I already know who you two are: Keith Kogane and Lance McLain of Earth, pilots of the Black and Red lions respectively.” The Druid smiled further.

“Voltron has been able to evade and stand up to the Empire for far too long. Something tells me that they will be more willing to turn tail and run or even relinquish their Lions now that we have two of their precious paladins.” Lance felt something cool and sharp slide from his jaw to his cheekbone. His first thought was a knife, but it seemed too coarse, and serrated than any knife he had felt before.

Whatever it was cut through his blindfold and the material fell to the floor like a feather. It took his eyes a bit to adjust to the soft purple light that felt so harsh on him, but when they did, he jerked away from the Druid who was standing _right there_ in front of his face. It was indeed a woman, although he expected that any feminine wiles had been bled from her body.

Thin ragged hair hung stiffly from her hood. Her glowing eyes allowed him to see that her face was gaunt and almost skeletonized. Cheekbones stuck out farther than Florida into the Atlantic and her pointed jawbone wasn’t far behind. They looked sharp enough to cut flesh and Lance had no clue how her own skin was pulled so tightly against them.

His eyes flit about the room, trying to see what weapons she had on her and his eyes rested on her hand. More specifically her fingernails which were as long as her fingers and curling slightly in on themselves. Although, it looked like they had been sharpened to claws and those claws were right next to his face.

He tensed as he realized that those were what had cut through his blindfold and he shivered involuntarily. Nails sharp enough to cut through fabric. He started to wonder how his own skin would fare against them, but stopped himself; he didn’t need to be going down that road.

“You have such interesting eyes.” The Druid smiled and her hands came up to cup Lance’s face. He tried to pull away from the nails which were dangerously close to the eyes she had just mentioned, but when he shifted his weight onto his left arm, he squeezed his eyes shut in pain and tried not to let his whimper free.

Keith must have felt him tense beside him because he was soon calling out. “You keep your filthy hands off of him, Druid.” He spat out and there was venom in his voice. Far more than Lance had ever thought possible. Lance looked at Keith who had his hands bound behind his back and chained to the wall.

He was pulling at his restraints, the chains level with the force. Lance had never seen him so frantic to move, so high strung. He was lunging at the place where the Druid’s voice had come from and if Lance wasn’t mistaken, it looked like he was baring his teeth.

The Druid just turned her head and smiled at him. “Have I struck a nerve with this one?” She laughed and it sounded more like a landslide than laughter, but her body shook with the sound.

She reached up with her fingernail and sliced through Keith’s blindfold like a hot knife through butter. She left a red streak where her nail had cut through his skin as well and Lance felt his stomach twist. _Don’t hurt him. Hurt me, please. He’s worth so much more to the team. He’s the damn black paladin. Hurt me instead._

Their eyes met for an instant and Lance didn’t see pain, he saw a raw fury. Keith broke eye contact first, his own violet eyes scraping over Lance’s body, resting on his left arm where Lance could feel the pain throbbing outwards and into the rest of his body.

Lance looked at Keith. He had been stripped of his armor from the waist up and his black shirt had lifted up slightly to show white bandages where he had been shot. He couldn’t help but feel a little tension melt from his body. If nothing else, at least they had patched him up.

Lance looked back at Keith who was staring bloody murder at Tlatka. “You will not touch him again. Do you hear me?”

The blue paladin looked at him in confusion. Why did Keith care what happened to him?

“I think…” She trailed off and turned to face Lance again. She smiled like she was a child with a brand new toy that she was eager to play with. “I think I will touch him.” She trailed her fingertips over his cheek and pulled at the gag still in his mouth.

Keith seethed; he seemed beyond words as his eyes filled with blatant, utter, hatred for the woman in front of him.

Her hand drifted further down and moved to his bicep where one of the nails dug into the bullet wound. Lance’s eyes widened considerably and his arms dropped him as he _screamed_ and writhed on the floor, trying to get away from Tlatka as she twisted her finger and plunged it deeper.

He could feel the sharpened claw catching on his muscles and scraping on the bone. He _writhed_ on the floor curling away from her. She pulled the nail out, but not without pulling a little more of his skin in the process.

Distantly he registered someone screaming and at first, he thought that it was him screaming, but he realized that it was _Keith_. He was pulling as hard as he could against the chains that surrounded his wrists and connected him to the wall.

“You _bitch_! Get your filthy fucking hand off of him.” Keith was seething; there was murder in his eyes. Lance didn’t doubt that if his hands hadn’t been bound, they would be around Tlatka’s neck.

The Druid trailed her fingernail down Lance’s cheek that left a bloody trail in its wake. “I don’t think I will.” She sliced through his gag and it fell to the floor. His mouth filled with saliva as air flooded his mouth. He gasped for breath and doubled in on himself.

The air was stale, dry, and tasted bitter, but it was the best thing he had had in a long time.

Lance coughed, his tongue too big for his mouth.

“Hey! Lance, Lance? Speak to me. On a scale of one to ten tell me; how bad is it?” He turned his attention to the Druid. “I swear, if it’s anything above three, I’m going to tear you limb from limb.”

“That’s not fair.” Lance croaked out, his throat felt like it had been ripped to shreds. “I started with a base of seven.”

Keith narrowed his eyes, “ _Exactly_.”

Tlatka curled her hand around Lance’s throat and he tried to reach up to stop the fingers from constricting his air, but he couldn’t and he took one last breath of stale air before his lungs wouldn’t expand anymore.

She lifted him by the neck and his chains drew his arms to the ground. It felt like his arm was on fire; he tried to scream, but he couldn’t push the air out of his lungs.

His face was heating up considerably, but there was something else. His vision was starting to blacken the already dark room. There were shapes dancing across the room, shapes that he knew weren’t there, but he saw them all the same.

He was all of a sudden just so… tired. He couldn’t see much other than faint pinpricks of purple light at the edges and sleep seemed so calming. So close to him. He tried to blink the spots away, but they only got bigger, stronger.

He could feel himself slipping, sliding away from consciousness. It felt like there was cotton in his ears. He could tell that someone was talking, or was that screaming? A ringing in his ears grew louder and louder until all he could hear was that damned sound.

Then the pressure on his throat was relinquished as quickly as it began and he gasped for air, sucking it in like a man in a desert chugged water. He blinked the darkness away from his vision and surprisingly he was on the floor again. Funny how he hadn’t felt a single thing since he had been picked up.

And Keith… He was on his knees, straining towards Lance. Why was he trying so desperately to get to him? He was going to undo whatever medical work had been done to help him at this rate. Lance opened his eyes a little wider to show him that he was okay. Purple eyes stared back, frantic, he was mouthing something, trying to ask him something maybe?

Lance’s vision cleared a little more and… were those tears in his eyes? Unshed tears maybe. His side must be hurting him something fierce if he was trying to hold back tears. His eyes started to slide closed and Keith’s struggling got more frantic, he looked… scared?

“Such a nice reaction.” The Druid hissed, “This is what I wanted when I walked through that door. Pain so raw and frantic that the air is thick with it. I’m almost tempted to see if I could bottle it up and store it for later, but that is for another experiment. I have you for an entirely different purpose.”

She motioned for the guards that had so far stayed out of her way to come forward and disconnect Keith from the wall. He fell straight onto his chest afterward, with the chains holding him back gone. Lance had a fleeting thought that he looked remarkably like a seal with his arms at his sides and his head out straight in front of him.

He let a small grin splay out across his lips, but it quickly faded when the guards hauled the black paladin to his feet by the back of his neck. For a second, all Lance could see were Keith’s unsteady legs half-stood, half-dragged against the floor.

He felt his stomach lurch as another guard grabbed him in a similar hold and then threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. His body waved from side to side with the guard’s gait and he thought he heard Keith struggling in front of him, but he could have easily been mistaken.

He heard a sound like rushing water in the distance. He closed his eyes and squinted in concentration. Rushing water wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever, they were on a Galran ship in the middle of space, light-years away from any planet with enough water to imitate an Earthen river.

The roar grew louder as he moved through the hall and he was soon able to discern what it really was.

Voices.

Maybe hundreds and hundreds of voices. Maybe thousands and thousands. However many it was, Lance was getting closer and closer to them. He felt fear curl around his heart.

He had heard stories of the Arena, where Shiro had become the Champion to the Galra, where he had been made famous throughout the Empire. He closed his eyes and imagined himself back on Earth on sandy beaches where he could play with his nieces and nephews in the waves. The tiny grains would get everywhere and if he imagined-

If he imagined, then the roar of the crowd could be the crash of water against the beach. The sway of the soldier’s gait could be the gentle rocking of the waves. He had almost grasped the image in his mind when he was tossed to the very hard, not at all sandy floor.

The crowd’s distant noise had become overwhelming, a roar that consumed all other noise around him. He pushed himself to his knees with one arm and his eyes rested on Keith right in front of him.

Lance stumbled forward, half on his hand, half on his feet to get to the fallen Paladin. Now that they were in the light, he could see the bandaging around Keith’s waist more clearly. It looked… good? As if he had been treated seriously and in an actual effort to keep him alive.

The realization sent a shiver through his body; they didn’t want to kill them.

Something clattered on the floor in front of the two of them. Well, two somethings. Matching swords lay within easy grasp of the paladins.

“What is this?” Lance croaked out, barely a whisper loud enough for Keith to hear, but his voice was suddenly all around him. It was broadcast throughout the entire arena, loud enough that the stands shook with the vibrations or excitement.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tlatka’s voice echoed similarly. It was sickeningly sweet, “We want to watch the Paladins of Voltron fight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there we are. The angst begins. I can't wait until y'all read the next chapter. It's gonna be great (or not).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to start this off by saying that I'm really sorry for this chapter. The quality is less than my usual quality, which is already bad enough, and on top of that, it's about half the length of a normal chapter of mine. I'm so sorry about that.

“ _We want to watch the Paladins of Voltron fight_.”

The words played over and over in Lance’s head as he stared at the blades in front of him. He felt Keith stiffen beside him at the voice and he suspected that it wasn’t just echoing in his head.

“That’s not going to happen,” Keith spoke and he sounded so much more sure than Lance felt. “You’re awfully mistaken if you think that I’m going to raise a blade against Lance.”

Laughter reverberated through the Arena and beat Lance’s heart for him. “No, Keith.” The red paladin could almost hear the Druid’s smile. “I don’t think I am mistaken.” The sound of rushing water filled his ears, and for a second, he thought the crowd had simply gotten themselves riled up.

That was until a wetness licked at his knees, dampening his clothes and chilling him to the bone. Large gates had been opened at the corners of the Arena and torrents of water were flooding into the space. The water was rising quickly, but not too quickly, they had a good hour or so of treading water before they needed to be concerned.

The red paladin looked at Keith who was staring at the water slowly rising up to cover the top of his hand. “Okay, Keith. Any ideas on how to get us out of this?” No answer, Keith was still looking at the water which had now climbed its way to his wrist. “Keith? Buddy, we need to get out of here and I’m not the one that comes up with all of the plans around here. That’s your job.”

Keith started shaking, or maybe he was already shaking and Lance just hadn’t known it. He pulled the black paladin to his feet, being careful to avoid his side. It was harder than Lance thought it would be, he wasn’t exactly cooperating.

“What’s up, Keith?” He asked, hearing his own voice ask the question again and again. “Hey, look at me?” He cupped Keith’s face right under his jaw, ignoring the throbbing in his shoulder to tell him to keep his arm down.

Violet eyes stared back at him. Water licked at their calves. “Lance-” He cut himself off and shook his head, “I… I can’t swim.” Laughter erupted around the two of them as their own voices broadcast their problems to thousands of strangers.

_Oh_.

He took a shaky breath in, that really didn’t bode well for how long they could survive. He looked at Keith, who looked partly between running from the water and fighting it; both options were pretty hard to accomplish.

Would he be accepting to an impromptu swimming lesson? By the way his muscles were tensed, Lance was assuming no, he probably wouldn't. “Keith, look at me.” His eyes flicked up to meet Lance’s but just as quickly they were back down, staring at the rising water.

“ _Look_ at me, Keith.” He raised his good arm so that it rested on Keith’s shoulder. “I can try and keep us both afloat as long as possible, but I don’t know how long that could be.”

Keith squeezed his eyes shut, “Okay, uh- um- what can we, uh- what can we do?” He gripped his head in his hands. His hair carded between his fingers and he tugged. “Think, think, think, think, think, think- Damn it all, Lance. I can’t- I can’t.” He opened his eyes and stared right into Lance’s. They were filled with terror.

“You know, there is one way that you can get out of this.” Tlatka’s voice taunted from around them. The water was up to their knees now. “You’ve got two fancy little swords right there in front of you. All you have to do is… raise them against each other.” The crowd roared. It was obvious what they wanted.

Keith looked down at the blades; the water obscured their shapes. The water rushed out faster, so now it was halfway up their thighs. He reached down and grabbed the two of them. If he had waited any longer, his head would have gone under, and that would have been all around bad news.

He handed one of them to Lance who took it. His hands were shaking. “What-” He swallowed heavily, “What do you want me to do with this?”

“I’m just…” He trailed off, “I’m just keeping our options open, okay?”

“There is _no_ way that I am going to fight you.” Lance looked at him, “Not a chance.”

“I don’t want to either, Lance, but we might not have a choice.” Keith turned to face him more directly, but the water was up to their waists. The black paladin tripped and felt himself slip and fall down into the water.

It closed over his head instantly, like it was wrapping him in a hug. A hug that he couldn’t breathe in or move in. He was so cold. The water was pushing his way into his nose and ears. He could hear the magnified rush of water as more of it added to his deadly tomb.

He tried to push him up, out of the water, but he couldn’t. He was lying flat on his back, when he opened his eyes, he could see the purple light shining through the waves onto him. Keith couldn’t- couldn’t move. Everything was so slow.

His hair floated in front of his eyes, the locks curling in the water. It was almost… peaceful.

But then his lungs started burning. Precious bubbles of air burst from his lips.

Then hands gripped his shoulders and pulled him upward. The feeling was so different, so alien, that it took him a second to realize what was happening.

He was suddenly gasping air, clean, fresh, beautiful air. Lance had him. Arms were wrapped around him, they held him up while he desperately searched for the floor beneath his feet.

“Keith, Keith. Calm down. You’re fine. It’s just a little water, okay?”

Keith looked at Lance incredulously through his dripping bangs, “‘A little water?’” He sputtered.

The crowd around them howled with laughter and Lance sent them a glare that could kill. “This is just a game to you! Isn’t it? Some weird screwed up game that involves pitting friends against each other?”

Their audience only seemed to get more riled up at that, jeers of “Pick up the swords!”, “Drop him!” and “Let him struggle a little more!” floated to them. Even when their voices weren’t amplified, the phrases stabbed straight through them.

“I’m not going to fight him!” Lance roared, still clutching Keith to him. The water rose to their chests. Was it coming in faster? He didn’t know.

“It doesn’t seem like you have a choice, now does it, red paladin?” The Druid’s voice echoed across the water. “It seems like the two of you have a choice. It’s a very simple choice, really. You two fight, or one of you - probably your friend there - drowns.” He could almost hear her smile.

“Lance- Lance.” Keith finally got his feet under him properly. He was barely getting the words out; his breaths were coming in short bursts. Lance recognized the beginnings of a panic attack.

He shook his head, “No, no, we are not doing this here. You are _not_ going to drown here. You are _not_ going to die, and we _are_ going to get out of this.”

“Lance, get the swords. Attack me.” Keith’s eyes were wide open, he was staring at the blades in the water; they had both dropped them when Keith went under too far down for him to reach without going back under the water. Just the thought of it made his muscles lock up.

“What? Are you insane?” He demanded, “I’m not going to attack you. You’re the freaking black paladin. Just-I’ll keep us afloat until they get bored of watching us tread water.”

The Druid’s laughter sent chills down their spines, “ _That’s_ your plan? Your master plan that allows you both to get out? Well, you might as well drown yourselves now.”

“Lance, get those goddamn swords right now and hit me with one.”

“I am not going to fight you.” He enunciated every word with a jab of his fingers into Keith’s shoulder.

“Go get the swords, Lance. I don’t want to fight you either, but I also don’t want you to die here.” Lance looked like he wanted to argue, he really did, but he ducked beneath the water which was now up to his shoulders.

For five seconds, it couldn’t have been any longer than that, Keith was alone above the water. He stared down at Lance’s form in the water. He looked so… at ease, so comfortable in the water. His lithe form glided just beneath the surface and he was back up with both blades in his hands.

He shook his head and water flew off in droplets, catching Keith in the face. The jerk didn’t even have the decency to sputter ungracefully while he did it. He just rubbed his eyes and handed Keith a weapon. The hilt almost slipped from his hands, but he was able to catch himself before it did.

“Alright, now hit me.”

Lance looked aghast. “I did not just dive down into the water to pick up a weapon so that I could hit you.”

Keith shook his head. “No, but there’s sure no way that I’m going to fight you. And I don’t want either of us to die, so it looks like we’re not given much choice.”

“Would you just _shut up_ about this self-sacrificing BS? I’m not going fight you for the last time!” He turned to gesture with his hand, but the sword was in it. He tried to stop it, really, he did. Time slowed as he watched the dulled metal catch the light and reflect it back into his eyes. Keith’s reflexes weren’t anything to be ashamed of, even in his weakened state and his left hand shot up to catch the blade before it could damage him.

Lance’s heart stopped.

“Well.” Tlatka’s voice sounded over the crowd’s sudden roar. “That’s not the way that I would have done it, but it seems like we have a victor. The red paladin is superior over the black.” The water started to drain rapidly, leaving the two of them feeling heavy and wet. “Take the weak one.” Her voice had changed, it was deeper, darker than before.

The audience riled itself up further. Lance didn’t know what was happening, all he knew is that it couldn’t be good. As soon as the arena was completely empty of water, the doors slid open and revealed a small army of Galra soldiers.

They rushed in, their boots squeaking on the damp metal. The paladins stood back to back, each wielding their sword. Lance’s body shook slightly behind Keith’s, “I- I- I- I’m so sorry, Keith. I never- I didn’t I- I would never have- I didn’t mean to.” Tears fell down his cheeks.

“It’s alright, Lance.” Keith’s voice was a lot steadier than it should have been, “Don’t you remember?” The Galra surrounded them, creating an almost perfect circle. “Voluntary touches don’t count.” Keith turned to face him right as the first Galra soldiers rushed them. There was a smile plastered on his face; it looked almost playful, and for an instant, Lance felt like everything would be alright.

The guards grabbed Keith’s wrists and yanked them behind his back. He was pushed to his knees which made dull thuds on the ground. The same was done to Lance right behind him.

“Sweet dreams, you two.” They said, right before they brought the back of their guns down and darkness enveloped their vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys didn't hate that too much.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ummmm... Sorry, this is so late... I had an essay due today that I literally just finished like 10 minutes before I'm posting this. I was also really sick Wednesday, so I haven't written a lot since then. Who would have known that taking care of yourself in college is actually really difficult? Sure not me. Anyway, I'm so sorry that this is such a late update, but I really hope you enjoy this chapter. This one might actually be my favorite one that I've written so far, so please tell me what you think of it at the end. Sorry for rambling, please enjoy the new chapter!

Lance was back in the room. This time, he was alone. Keith wasn’t here, and he had no clue how long it would be until he returned. Now that he wasn’t blindfolded, he could see the room somewhat clearly.

His back was to the wall opposite the door. To his left were the chains where Keith’s hands had been. They loosely dangled from a hook in the middle of the wall. To his right was another hook, although this one was free of any chains; it looked like Keith and Lance got this room all to themselves.

It was small, but not small enough that it bordered on cruel. It looked like Lance could lay stretched out diagonally and fit, but just barely. The room was a perfect square. The walls were smooth metal, but in the dim purple light, it looked like there was something splattered on them. Lance didn’t want to think about what it could be.

He looked down at his wrists, which were bound in front of him now. In the darkness, he could barely see where his skin was raw from where they had rubbed against the cuffs. Vainly, he tried to pull his hands from them again, only for another layer of sweat to break out on his skin and more blood to spill from the wounds.

He gasped in pain and squeezed his eyes shut. When his eyes blinked open again, he only saw darkness for the first few seconds before small stars of purple light made themselves apparent.

Chains no longer connected him to the wall, but the reminder was still there. They could once again hinder him from movement.

The door slammed open and bathed Lance in dark purple light. It took all of his self-control not to fling himself vainly at the opening; trying to escape now would only lead to higher security in the future. A dark form dominated the entrance so any chance Lance would have had of freedom would have quickly disappeared.

The man was large, even for a Galra. His muscles bulged out impossibly large, almost touching both sides of the doorway. He had to duck down to enter the cell so that he didn’t hit his head on the ceiling. He looked around the room, pausing only for a moment on Lance curled up in the corner before he stepped aside. More light spilled through the open door, so much so that it forced Lance to close his eyes.

He missed the second guard shoving a much smaller, much more human looking body into the room. Keith’s wrists were bound in front of him, although it didn’t look like he had struggled much against them. The ambient light reflected off of his pale skin, giving him an eerie Galra appearance.

He straightened himself and leveled an icy glare at the two guards who stood in the doorway, blocking the exit. The second one laughed, almost doubling over with the force of his mirth. “All right. You can act as high and mighty as you would like. Just know that your resolve won’t hold. We’ll break you, just like we’ll break your friend over there.” He gestured to Lance, who hadn’t moved anything aside from his eyes since Keith had been shoved back into the cell.

The other Galra nudged his buddy. “It looks like he’s well on his way and we haven’t even touched him yet.”

Lance couldn’t see it, but Keith’s eyes darkened considerably. “If you touch him,” His voice echoed off of the metal walls, creating a terrifying effect. “I will kill you.”

The largest man laughed, “ _You_ kill _me_?” He took a step into the room and shoved Keith backward into the wall. The black paladin stumbled slightly, but he didn’t fall. He stood up straighter and looked the other dead in the eyes. The soldier narrowed his and sent a vicious punch into Keith’s face.

The paladin practically flew to the ground. He barely caught himself before his head hit the floor. Lance heard the _clang_ of the chains around his wrists as they hit the metal, but there was something… else. That noise was too loud and too _solid_ to have just been chain links falling to the ground.

“You can barely even save yourself.” He spoke as he spat on Keith, the glob of saliva landing with a wet smack on his cheek. Lance felt anger bubble to the surface. It started from something deep inside him and rose to the surface, almost choking him with a growing lump in his throat.

The guards turned their backs on them and left the room. The boys watched them leave the room, and the doors slammed shut as suddenly as they had slammed open, enveloping the two in pitch darkness. They waited for half a second before they rushed to each other’s side. Lance tore more skin from his raw wrists, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not when Keith had been alone with the Galra for who knows how long and endured who knows what.

Keith reached up and rubbed the spittle from his cheek, trying his hardest not to grimace. The light caught his left hand in just the right way so that it glinted in the darkness. Okay, Keith was pale, but he wasn’t _that_ pale. Lance felt a pit form in his stomach, a sinking feeling that he couldn’t shake.

“Keith?” His voice was barely a whisper and hoarse from disuse. He tried again, “Keith, are you okay?” That was better this time, it didn’t feel like he was breathing sawdust instead of air. He swallowed around nothing, hoping that it would help alleviate the dryness, but it changed nothing. He still coughed dryly, the Galra had neglected to provide them with any form of sustenance, whether that was food or water. Unless you were counting the water that they tried to drown the two of them in, which Lance did not.

Keith nodded, his right hand rubbing absently at his left wrist. Even in the dim light, Lance could see a considerable line between Keith - pale and pure white. The pit in his stomach grew heavier. “I’m fine, Lance. It’s nothing too bad.”

Lance didn’t hear him. He was too busy staring at Keith’s hand. It wasn’t there anymore. He reached out and pulled it closer to himself to try and inspect it. The last of his hopes flew out the window as he felt cold, unyielding metal beneath his fingertips. A new lump grew in his throat, replacing its earlier counterpart of rage effortlessly.

The Galra had taken his hand just like they had taken Shiro’s arm.

With sudden clarity, he reimagined the scene from earlier. He had swung the blade and had Keith had caught it. With his left hand. The hand that was no longer there.

_I did this_ echoed in his mind. It repeated itself like a broken record, _I did this, I did this, I did this._ It was all he could think of; it drowned out all other thoughts until all he could hear was the awful reality that he had taken Keith’s hand. The voice was screaming now, pounding behind his ears, _I DID THIS I DID THIS I DID THIS I DID THIS I DID THIS_ -

“Lance!”

A voice, definitely not from his mind broke through the internal monologue. It was a breath of air to a drowning man. His piercing blue eyes rose to meet vibrant purple ones; they found each other, even in the darkness.

“Will you look at me?” He asked, holding Lance’s gaze so that he couldn’t look away, even if he tried. Warm, calloused fingers wiped tears from his cheek. Lance leaned into the touch, closing his eyes. “Stop crying, please. I can’t stand it when you cry.”

The red paladin shook his head vehemently, dislodging Keith’s hand. “I’m- I’m so sorry.” He choked out past the lump in his throat. He wiped his own tears away, shivering from how cold and clammy they were.

“Why are you apologizing? You didn’t do anything wrong.” Keith asked. Concern was etched on his face so clearly that it could be seen through the darkness.

“It’s my- it’s my fault.” Lance shook his head again as the tears fell faster. “I freaked out, and I should never have freaked out like that. I’m a damn paladin, but I was just so scared and frustrated and angry at the Galra for everything that they were doing, and I tried to _hit_ you and I should never have done that, because you’re the _black paladin_ and you’re far more important to me, but I just wanted everything to just _stop_ , and it did, but I never wanted it to-”

Keith stopped him with a finger over his lips. The gentle touch so foreign that it prevented the words from being said even as they formed. He smiled as warmly as he could at the younger paladin. “You’re rambling, Lance.”

“But-”

“No.” The black paladin’s words were insistent, “It’s not your fault. Even if you had maliciously hit me, trying to kill me, it wouldn’t be your fault. Do you hear me? It’s the Galra’s fault.” He looked down at his left hand which was pure white. The seams where metal overlapped could barely be seen. It would have looked beautiful if his real hand hadn’t been taken for this to replace it.

Lance choked out a sob next to him, “I’ve messed everything up, haven’t I?”

“What? No, La-” Keith tried to protest, but Lance interjected before he could.

“I mean, back on Yayrus, I turned off my goddamn coms, and you had to look for me in that goddamn school. I was distracted and didn’t notice the goddamn _Galra soldier_ come into the room. Then I could have at least tried to do something. I could have tried to shoot him and gotten shot because of it. Then you wouldn’t have come into that goddamn room and seen me too useless to even move or shout a warning. If it weren’t for me, you would be back on the castle instead of in this goddamn hellhole, losing your hand because I was so frustrated.”

He looked back up at Keith. Tears had made their way down his face, leaving marks through the grime. The wetness in his eyes accentuated their color and pain that was hidden so far beneath them. Keith could see it now. He could see how strong Lance had been staying all while they were here, forced to wait for Keith to come back, not knowing if he would even be alive when the door opened. He looked beautiful.

“So tell me.” Lance spat, conviction in his voice. “What part of that wasn’t my fault?”

Keith swallowed thickly. “You were wrong.” He drew in a shaky breath and Lance’s eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “You were wrong from the very beginning. I didn’t go to the school because your coms were off and we needed to leave; I went in for you. I was worried about you.”

Lance shook his head. “No, you said that no one else could find anything and so you came to get me. Why else would you have-”

“I went in for you!” Keith shouted. His voice echoed against the walls, the word ‘you’ reverberated in Lance’s head and he squeezed his eyes shut to get rid of it. “I went in for you.” He whispered again, more quietly.

“Why would you do that? You’re the team leader; you’re too important to everyone.” Lance whispered, tears pooling at the bottom of his eyes, threatening to spill over.

Keith swallowed around his own lump in his throat, “ _You_ are too important to _me_.”

Lance stared blankly back at him.

“ _You_ are important to the team too, you know. _You_ are the one to cheer anyone up whenever they’re down. _You_ are the reason that I stay sane most of the time. With Shiro gone, you have become the best friend that I never thought you could be. I went into that school for _you_.

“I would do it again. I would get shot again. I would lose my entire body for _you_.” He gently reached out and took Lance’s wrists in his right hand, “Anything to keep you from hurting because you are the most important person in my life.

“So this,” He held up his left hand, the perfect silver metal catching the ambient light and reflecting it into Lance’s eye almost playfully, “Is only the beginning of what I would do to keep you safe. So, don’t you go around talking as if you don’t matter or it would have been okay if you had died. It wouldn’t have been okay because you matter to me. I lo- I care about you.”

The red paladin sniffled loudly and tried to laugh to lighten the mood, tried to get it back to the jokes that he could control because he couldn’t control this, “That’s awfully gay of you, Keith.”

“I’m gonna let you in on a secret then,” Keith smirked and did the only thing he could think of to do. He pulled Lance into the most awkward hug that either of them had ever been in. The red paladin, for all of his love for physical touch, didn’t know what to do at first. His arms were both bound in front of him, and he was perched on the heels of his feet. “I’m really, _really_ gay.”

Lance laughed. It wasn’t the laugh that Keith had grown to love; it wasn’t one of his full belly laughs that shook his whole body or one of his giddy giggles that caused his nose to scrunch up. His body shook as if it were expected to and it was merely going through the motions.

He laughed until his body wasn’t shaking with forced mirth anymore. He was openly crying into the crook of Keith’s neck. The transition from joy to sorrow was so seamless that he wondered just how often Lance walked that line. He tightened his arms around the younger paladin who only cried harder.

Keith’s shoulder was getting steadily wetter, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Lance curled his arms up in his best imitation of a hug and burrowed further into the warmth of Keith’s neck. The black paladin raised the fingers of his right hand and absently ran them through Lance’s hair. For a few hours, they could pretend that everything was okay.

For a few hours, they could pretend that they were safe.

Lance’s crying soon subsided to occasional sniffles, and his breathing evened out. “I’m… sorry.” He whispered as he pulled away from Keith who’s only thoughts were for him to _stay_. Stay right where they were, where they could pretend. The cold air chilled him to the bone almost as much as the red paladin’s absence.

“What are you sorry for?” He forced himself to stay in the same place, even when every cell in his body urged him to get closer to Lance.

“I’m supposed to be the happy one, aren’t I? You even said it yourself, I’m the one everyone goes to for a quick cheer up. You lost _a part of yourself_ and here I am crying on _your_ shoulder.” Then, like a switch, he was smiling again. A brilliant smile that was blinding in the darkness. It made Keith’s breath lodge itself in his chest.

“How can you do that?” He forced himself to ask. If it weren’t for the tear marks through the dirt on his face, Keith never would have been able to tell he had been crying.

Lance looked at him innocently, “Do what?”

“You just… You just changed. How do you flip from that to this-” He gestured to Lance’s still smiling face. “In no time at all?”

The red paladin shrugged and raised his hand to scratch the back of his head, but the manacles on his wrists caught and he ended up raising his other hand loosely to his nose. “I’m used to it.”

If Keith’s heart didn’t break with those words, then it was truly indestructible. “You shouldn’t have to. You should be able to let loose and cry every once in a while. Whose shoulder do you go to cry on?”

He could tell before Lance even answered, “I don’t… really go to anyone. I’m the shoulder people cry on, it would be weird if all of a sudden the shoulder started crying. I used to go to Hunk, but we would both end up crying because he can’t help but cry if anyone else is crying.” He smiled again, and damn if Keith didn’t fall in love once more. It was so _genuine_. How could this beautiful boy in front of him in the bowels of a Galra ship still manage to set his heart on edge?

“So I figured save the tears.” Lance continued, “We don’t need any more of those; we have enough as it is.”

Keith shook his head, “Lance, you know that you can, like, come to any of us, right? You can just talk things out, or just talk at me because I’m clearly not good at communicating.”

The red paladin shook his head right back, “What’s the point though? I cry a little, people tell me I shouldn’t cry. Nothing gets solved. There’s just more tears and more pain. Things would only get worse; besides, it’s not like anyone really cares.”

Keith opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, the door flung them into the light. They both had to shut their eyes against it, lest they go blind. When their eyes both adjusted, Tlatka stood in the doorway. She had her hood pulled over her head, so her face was thankfully obscured.

“Are you ready for round two?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? Please tell me what you think about this chapter? I went through so many different phases of what I wanted to happen here, but I wasn't sure that what I settled on was going to be the best. So, normally I'd say something like "Like if you did and comment if you really did." But now I'm being really honest here, I really want to know what you guys thought of this chapter. Did you like it? Did you not like it? Please tell me.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...my chapters seem to be getting steadily shorter and I am so sorry for that. Anyway, I really hope that you enjoy this chapter, even though it's like all action, which is one of my weakest things to write, so I'm really sorry if the writing is really crappy. So, please accept this crappily written short chapter in exchange for what you truly deserve.

“Are you ready for round two?” Tlatka sneered. Her lips curled distastefully over her teeth which could barely be made out from under the shadow of her hood. Yellow eyes peered at the two of them and they both shivered. It was as if her eyes pierced right through them.

“Round two?” Lance scoffed, “Didn’t we literally just get back from round one?” He sat up straighter and the chains clanged against the wall and floor rhythmically. His side felt cold where he had leaned up against Keith.

The druid smiled impossibly wide, her teeth shining yellow from where she stood. “Why paladin of red. That was three days ago. The audience is quite riled up by now.”

Lance felt the blood drain from his face. He felt himself fall back slightly against Keith who wrapped an arm around him to steady him. Three days? No, that couldn’t be right. He had just woken up two vargas ago. He couldn’t have been out for that long.

He felt his chest tighten slightly and he tried to breathe deeply, but he couldn’t. Every drag of his breath and impact that the chains made sounded clear in his mind; they reverberated in his skull. Everything else was dully muted like he was hearing it from underwater.

Three days was so long. He couldn’t have lost that much time. He _couldn’t_ have. They couldn’t have kept him asleep that long, he rationalized in his head. They were _lying_. They must be lying. Trying to get a rise out of him. Right. Right?

A voice was saying something. Dully, Lance realized that it was Keith. Who was he speaking to? Was it him? What was he saying? He was yelling, wasn’t he? Why was he yelling? Did Lance do something wrong? He would apologize as soon as Keith would just _stop yelling at him_. Just _please stop yelling, stop yelling, stop yelling_ what did he _do_?

He felt hands on his shoulders that gripped him tightly. His skin burned under their touch. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._ Keith was yelling again, screaming and the hands disappeared from his shoulders. _Imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry_

Lance opened his eyes blearily, when had he closed them? Keith had his back to him and he was fighting against the Galran guards. Keeping them from him? Why would he do that?

The guards slammed Keith into the side of the cell. His head hit the wall with a loud _crack_ and sound came crashing back to him. He heard Keith’s body fall to the floor dully as Tlatka yelled at the guards for their carelessness. His head was turned away from Lance so that he couldn’t see his face.

Keith wasn’t moving.

Lance’s brain short-circuited. “Keith.” He whispered. He frantically crawled across the floor to get to him. The chains around his wrists clanked against the metal floor with every shift.

“Oh, _now_ he moves.” Tlakta sneered, but Lance didn’t listen to her. His eyes were only on Keith and his chest. Was that a breath? “Let’s just take the one. We’ll have to come up with something; the crowd is waiting.”

Hands of steel curled around his biceps, yanking him up and away from Keith. _Nononononononononononono_ He kicked his feet out vainly, searching for any sort of enemy flesh. He grimaced in satisfaction when his left foot hit something squishy and it was closely followed by a whispered curse.

He watched as Keith grew smaller in his vision. Blue eyes raked over the black paladin’s prone form, looking for any sort of life. Was that a twitch? Was that a gasp of breath? Did he curl further in on himself? He wanted to see Keith’s face but his hair, that goddamn mullet, was in the way. Lance had never hated his hair as much as he did at that moment. He kept looking for a flash of violet eyes in the midst of darkness, but there was nothing.

He was dragged around the corner, Keith left his sight, and his heart dropped.

The fight left him. Purple lights flashed by him intermittently, the movement barely registering in his mind. His feet dragged along the ground, and his toes clacked together occasionally. They would bang against each other and bounce back as if they were two magnets charged the same.

Before too long, Lance was tossed limply into the Arena. His cheek was pressed to the cold metal ground, and his arms were spread out uncomfortably around him. The crowd roared, their bloodthirst renewed from three days ago. Three days?

Tlatka’s gravelly voice echoed around him, but he didn’t put the effort in to understand the words. He was staring at a spot directly in front of him, where a tear had slipped from his eyes and landed on the floor. All he could see was Keith on the ground back in their cell.

Something heavy banged in the distance. It reverberated around Lance, but all he could hear was that awful _crack_ that Keith’s head had made against the wall. Something like footsteps sounded at the other end of the Arena, getting closer and closer to him. Keith’s body fell to the floor again and again and again.

Lance couldn’t do this.

The crowd roared louder and he felt tremors shake the ground beneath him. Something was getting closer to him steadily.

“Get up, red paladin.” The druid’s voice filled his ears. “We want a show.”

Sometime before he was dropped to the ground in the Arena, the restraints had been removed from his wrists. He placed his hands next to his head and tried to push himself up, but as soon as he did, he fell down again. His body hit the floor with a _thump_. Keith’s body hit the floor with a _thump_.

Whoever had approached him pulled him to his feet. Lance blearily blinked his eyes open and stared at the sea of Galra watching him. Some stood and waved their arms above their heads, the excitement, and anticipation clear even from where he was.

He raised his head and looked at who was holding him, and he came face to face with the biggest and ugliest Galra that he had ever seen. His opponent smiled obnoxiously. Crooked yellow fangs protruded out from thin purple lips. A wave of warm, putrid breath washed over his face, and Lance’s face screwed up in disgust.

The Galra tossed him to the side easily and he felt pain flash through his entire body. “Do… Do you ever brush your teeth?” Lance gasped out. The lame attempt at a joke fell flat, even to him, but the crowd roared with laughter. Some sort of synthesized food splattered on the floor next to him. Great. They were throwing food at him. That was just what he needed.

He pushed himself up and back onto the heels of his feet and panted for air. “We don’t want your jokes, paladin.” Tlatka’s voice rang out, full of irritation. “We want a show.”

“And _I_ want my partner.” Lance forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “We don’t always get what we want.”

The soldier in the Arena walked toward him with a swagger in his step as the druid laughed into the mic. “We’d be happy to toss him in there with you, but I doubt that you would enjoy him in his current state. He might be a bit of _dead_ weight, don’t you think?”

Lance’s eyes darkened. Keith couldn’t be dead. He wasn’t dead. The Galra needed him alive for their sick entertainment, didn’t they?

Arduously, Lance pushed himself to his feet. His body ached where it wasn’t screaming in pain, and the process was much more difficult than it had any right to be. He never thought that he would miss the cold, hard, dark cell like he did now. He just wanted to be back there, or even better, back in the castle. The pull to his bed had never been so strong.

A miniature quake shook him back to the present. His opponent had somehow gotten what looked like a small tree. Had he always had that? Where was it when the purple bull had tossed him like a feather across the room?

Desperately, Lance looked around. Last time, they had given both Lance and Keith a sword. Where was his weapon this time? He wasn’t here to be killed. They wanted a show, not a slaughter. Where was his weapon? His eyes flitted around the room, looking for a gun, or an ax, or a particularly large stick; he would settle for anything. They settled on something that had glittered briefly in the glaring lights of the Arena.

Lance scrambled over to it. He almost fell halfway there, but he caught himself before he hit the ground. Lethargic footsteps made their way to him as the Galra behind him crept ever closer.

It was a shard of glass about the length of his forearm. The base was wide and the edges were jagged, but the other end came to a deadly looking point. The one thing Lance knew was that he absolutely did not want to pick it up. The other thing he knew was that he absolutely had to pick it up.

His hand closed around the end and red blossomed from his fingertips around the edge. There was no pain to accompany the wound and even as he stared, the glass cut deeper, easier than a hot knife through butter. Wielding this as a weapon might be more dangerous than being on the receiving end of it.

Adrenaline was pumping through his body. That must be why he wasn’t feeling pain. The blade of glass cut deeper into his hand as he tightened his grip around it. His adversary wasn’t wearing armor, that was good. Where were the weak places on a person? He wracked his brain for all of the hand-to-hand Keith had taught him.

_Keith is laying in the dark with his head turned away from Lance. He can’t see a rise and fall of the black paladin’s chest. He can’t see a glimmer of life in Keith’s eyes. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing-_

The Galran soldier marched forward, the vibrations knocking Lance out of his delirium. He couldn’t think of Keith right now. He couldn’t think of Keith and his hair splaying out around his head, mimicking blood from a wound _pouring out, pouring out, pouring out-_

Lance shook his head to clear it. Here. Now. That’s what he needed to concentrate on. His blood fell to the floor in tiny droplets, then larger ones. His vision was getting blurry. Weak points, weak points, where were the weak points?

His mind summoned a memory from sparring practice. _”Hit the back of the knees, Lance.” Keith had grinned while he jabbed two fingers into the soft flesh there. Lance had gone down almost instantly. “That’s a sure fire way to knock them down.”_

Lance eyed the back of the soldier’s knees. It was going to be hard to hit. He would have to dodge the small tree and hit him in just the right place. Did it really have to be exact? He tried to think back to when Keith had done it to him. Had he gone for a specific spot when he did it? No, if he had gone for a specific area, then he would have told Lance.

The Galra was getting closer, and mini-quakes were sending tremors through his bones. If he was going to do this, he needed to do it now. He rose to his feet and his vision tilted. Blue eyes squeezed shut, and when they opened again, his vision was somewhat more clear. It wasn’t 100%, but he wasn’t going to be shooting anything, so it was probably alright. He launched himself forward without giving him any time to think or prepare. He needed to get out of here _now_.

The soldier came upon him much quicker than he had expected. Lance dodged the tree expertly. He dove to the side and popped up right behind the purple giant and quickly stabbed the glass shard into the soft skin at the back of his unprotected knee. The shard shattered so that there was still a piece of it lodged in him as he fell to the ground and roared.

It wasn’t a scream, it was a roar. The sound shook the entire Arena, and the audience went near silent as they watched the mighty soldier fall. He fell to his knees and turned to face Lance. There was murder in those yellow eyes. He reached behind him and pulled the glass from the back of his knee. Purple ichor spilled out from the gash as the jagged material cut further through flesh. He held the piece of glass between two fingers and glared at Lance through the red and purple stains.

He used his tree to stand. The ichor came out in rivulets as he used his leg. Lance scrambled backward, but the blood coming from his hand caused him to slip and fall. The soldier hefted the tree so that it rested on his shoulder. He walked forward and Lance had never felt more terrified as the soldier barely limped.

Had the red paladin not hit him in the right place? Was this just some freak of nature that wasn’t weak in that part of his leg? Maybe if both of his legs had been hit, then he would go down? Why wasn’t Tlatka saying anything?

He held the even further broken piece of glass in his bloody hand and steeled himself to attack again. His legs held him, but just barely. He rushed the Galra again, going for the other leg, but the behemoth was wise to his plan.

The tree descended rapidly. It was falling quickly, quickly, quickly, and Lance just needed to _move_ but time seemed to slow and so did his muscles. He tried to move faster, but he _couldn’t_ move, and the tree fell faster and faster, and his leg was in the way. Why wasn’t his leg moving?

The tree hit his leg and Lance heard the tell-tale _snap_ of solid bone breaking before the pain washed over him in waves. It burned his soul out of his body, and it tore a scream from his throat. He tried to suck in a breath to scream again, but he almost inhaled his tongue.

His leg was a red mess. The bone had torn through muscle and skin and was now out for everyone to see. His leg continued at an odd angle like he was a drawing that someone had bent in half. He felt his stomach lurch as he stared down at the splintered bone.

Tlatka was speaking in the background, but he couldn’t tell what she was saying all he could think of was that his leg was broken. He wouldn’t be able to run with his little cousins or race along the beaches. Not with a break this bad. He wouldn’t be able to swim as gracefully again. Who would look at his legs and think ‘ _beautiful_ ’ again?

He stared at his hand which was weakly pulsing along to the beating of his heart. The white of his bone was just barely visible through the red of his blood. That was what finally put him over the edge, and he passed out, letting the black of unconsciousness overtake him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a melancholy update because 'YAY, I have the new chapter up!!!' but also 'Oh no, I don't have the next chapter written............. Maybe the readers will forgive me? Probably not.'
> 
> So, I'm saying this in advance. I'm really sorry if I don't update next Friday.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. I have no excuse. I'm sorry for the long wait. This is unbetaed because I thought that you would want this as soon as it was out. That is, if anyone is still reading this. :/
> 
> I'm so sorry for the long wait.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

Lance was surrounded by bright lights. The pure white fluorescence shot straight through his eyes, so much so that he could physically feel his pupils constrict. He had never wondered what it would feel like to have his eyes repeatedly stabbed with a knife; now he thought he knew. The pain subsided only to be replaced with the burning ache resting in his leg, and it morphed only to an unbearable agony when he tried to move it.

He bit his bottom lip to keep himself from screaming, but a humiliating groan still slipped past. A thin sheen of sweat broke out across his skin from the pain and the lights.

“It looks like someone is awake.” Tlatka’s voice murmured above his head. He tried to look at her, but all he could see was a dark silhouette obscured by the bright medical lights. A sharp, jagged nail traced it’s way down his cheek. Despite the heat of the room, Lance shivered and pulled his face away from her freezing finger.

His mouth was dry, so he couldn’t talk and curse her. He couldn’t do anything other than groan and futilely try to pull away. The lights burned his eyes when he tried to glare at the druid, but then someone else in the room set their hand down on his leg and he _screamed_. Fire coursed up his leg as he writhed on the table.

He just wanted to _get away, get away, get away._ , but whatever he did only made more fire, more pain, more agony erupt throughout him.

“Sedate him.” She hissed to the other figure in the room. Her greasy hair hung in clumps so close to his face and he tried to scream out _No, no, no. Please. Please don’t do this to me_ but he couldn’t. Cold rushed through his arm and wrapped it’s icy fingers around his beating heart, clutching it tightly. His eyes drifted closed slowly.

It wasn’t slow enough.

They hadn’t drugged him enough.

He didn’t want to watch. He couldn’t close his eyes the rest of the way. He was trapped in his own body as it just laid there. He heard the whir of a saw start and his heart lodged itself in his throat. The saw dipped down and the squelch of skin being ripped apart filled the room. Blood spurt everywhere. There was so much red. So much.

He couldn’t feel it. He _knew_ that he was being cut. He _knew_ what was happening to him. He _knew_ , but he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t feel the muscle and the skin shred under the power of the circular saw and for some reason, that was worse than feeling it. Everything was so… disconnected. It was like Lance was watching and listening to someone else having their leg removed. It wasn’t him.

He wasn’t here.

He was just an observer to someone else’s misfortune.

Dimly, a thought came to him. _I wonder if this is what Keith saw_. Keith. The silver Galra hand. The fight before Lance’s turn in the ring. Keith’s body lying on the floor motionless. Lifeless violet eyes staring up at the red paladin.

The saw reached his bone, and Lance regret everything he ever said about not feeling. Each individual tooth dug into him and sent vibrations up his entire leg, shaking him to the core. He tried to scream, to beg, to plead with them to _just stop_ , but the only sound that left him was a pitiful whimper.

Blue eyes rolled into the back of his head as he tried desperately to will his body away from the raw, unadulterated _pain_.

It was over eventually, but nothing could be soon enough for Lance. The ‘doctors,’ if they could be called that, took a mass of bright and polished metal from a table. They placed it right below the stump that his leg now was, and without any further warning, they _jammed_ the prosthetic onto his leg.

This time he did scream.

The sound tore out of his throat and his muscles tensed, lifting his back off of the table, and slamming it back down again. He writhed as best as he could, which wasn’t very well, and the prosthetic which hadn’t been completely attached to his stump, ripped away from the rest of his flesh, leaving it in bloody tatters.

“I thought I told you to sedate him!” The same voice from earlier screamed at the other’s in the room. They tried to protest, but she spoke over them. “If you want something done right, you need to do it yourself.”

_No, no, no, nononononononono._ Lance watched through lidded eyes as he panted on the table. She twisted a knob on something, and more icy liquid rushed into his veins.

The last thing that he saw before the darkness finally enveloped his consciousness was her twisted smile.

\---

He stumbled as he was unceremoniously tossed into the cell, his body jerking forward as his legs refused to take him any further. Something cushioned his fall as he hit the ground, releasing a heavy puff of breath into the air.

He tried to get a fleeting look at the guards, but they were only silhouettes against the outside purple light from the hall as they closed the door on the cell, sealing him into the dark.

“Lance?”

He thought he heard his name whispered in the darkness, but it was hard to be sure. The hum of the engines could be heard from here, and the sound was barely louder than that.

“Lance, is that you?”

There it was again, but the only other person who would be here would be… _Keith_.

He rolled off of the pseudo pillow and onto the cold metal floor. “Keith?” He whispered. His voice was dry and raspy, from the lack of any liquid, but he didn’t feel as weak as he had before his match with the Goliath.

“You’re okay.” Keith breathed in relief. His own voice was similarly raw, but he crawled his way closer over to Lance, the only sound being his clothes sliding across the metal and catching on the edges of the plates.

“ _I’m_ okay?” Lance asked incredulously. “The last I saw you, you had been thrown across the room.”

“I’m sure I was fine.”

“You were unconscious!”

“It was but a flesh wound!” Keith laughed, only to groan heavily. The sound came from right next to Lance’s head. “Okay, maybe it was a bit more than a flesh wound.”

“Here, let me see,” Lance said, pulling his legs closer to him so that he could sit up only for one of them to drag across the floor with a horrid screech. He swallowed heavily, glancing down at the barely-there glint of polished metal that was where his leg had been. He couldn’t think about that now.

Not now.

Keith was hurt.

“I’m not sure how much you’ll be able to see,” Keith said, ignoring the sound. His voice was shaky, but he shifted, closer to Lance, the two of them feeling each other’s warmth through the air.

Lance reached blindly to Keith, touching his metal hand, he shivered and followed his arm up to his shoulder and to his head. He reached what he thought was Keith’s cheek when the other suddenly huffed and moved Lance’s hand to the side of his head, right above his ear, where his hair was clumped together and matted.

He hissed as Lance dipped his fingers into the mullet to find the edges of the wound on Keith’s scalp.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to be gentle?” Keith managed to get out through his clenched teeth. Lance could feel the tension of the other paladin’s jaw from where he was gauging the severity of the wound.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to suck it up?” Lance retorted, hoping that the small amount of humor in his voice would redeem the situation. It didn’t.

Keith chuckled again before groaning lightly and pulling away from Lance’s hand, curling in on himself. Lance could barely see the outline in the darkness. “Don’t make me laugh.” He whispered with his hands brought to his head to hold it. “It hurts when I laugh… and when I turn my head too fast… and anything else that would make your head hurt.”

Lance frowned, thankful that Keith couldn’t see it. “Well, lucky for you, I got several concussions when I was a kid. That means I’m pretty much an expert in this stuff.” He inched his hand further until they touched Keith’s hand. Only it wasn’t his flesh hand, and Lance couldn’t ignore it this time.

The contact sent a spark into the air, illuminating the two of them for an instant, and Lance jerked back. His leg hit the floor with a bang that echoed throughout the room and had Keith grabbing at his head again.

“Sorry.” He whispered, kneeling on his good leg so that the other one hopefully wouldn’t make any noise, well, any more noise.

“Damn,” Keith whispered as he pulled his hand away from his head. “I think it started bleeding again.” He felt the wetness off of his prosthetic with his other hand.

Lance felt his stomach flip as he remembered the blood that had spread from his leg when it was taken from him, and he closed his mind against the memory. “Alright,” he muttered back. “Okay, I’ll get something to cover it.” He looked around the room futilely; it was barren except for themselves and the chains.

Keith made a similar observation. “What are you going to make a bandage out of? The chains on the wall or the clothes off your back?” It might have been snarky, but his head had started to pound.

“That’s a great idea!” Lance exclaimed, a little too loudly, and his voice echoed around the room and painfully reached Keith’s ears. “Sorry,” he said more quietly.

“What’s a great idea? Please tell me you aren’t going to use the clothes off of your back.”

“Nope. I’m going to use the clothes off of my leg. Now, see if you can find something sharp other than your temper.” Keith glared daggers at Lance. “Good try, but we can’t use your eyes to cut my undersuit.”

He scoured the room with his eyes before he saw the metal plate holding a set of chains to the wall had started to pull up and away from the rest of the wall. He pushed himself to his feet, although the prosthetic felt weird where it met his skin, not painful, just a constant reminder that he wasn’t completely… there.

He cut his suit into long strips using the leg of his pants to create a bandage of sorts to wrap around Keith’s head, hoping that he wasn’t hurting him too much.

“There,” he said, smoothing Keith’s hair out and placing a small kiss to the other side of his head. “Kisses for comfort.” He joked, scooting over to the wall and pulling Keith along with him. “That’s what my mama always told me after she bandaged me up.”

“She sounds nice,” Keith said, his voice softer than it had been before. His head was resting on Lance’s shoulder, and his eyes were closed.

“My mama is absolutely amazing. She’s so kind and caring, but she’s also got a hotter temper than my father.” Lance said chuckling a little. “I can tell you about her if you’d like?”

Keith shook his head slightly, just enough for Lance to feel him shifting. “I want to hear about her under better circumstances. Here, I’m worried that if I ever meet her, I’ll think back to this.” His body shivered against Lance’s, and they scooted closer together.

Lance smiled softly. “I get that, but my mama’s so strong and kind, she’ll knock these memories right out of your head.”

“She sounds nice,” Keith said again as he curled into Lance more. “I’m cold.”

Rubbing his arms and hands against Keith’s side and back, Lance sighed. “I’m sorry about that. You know, when we get back to Earth after all of this is over, my mama’s gonna make us a nice big fire. You’ll get to meet all of my siblings and my papa, and my mama, and my cousins. They were so small when I left, and mama had to take care of them for most of the day when my brother and his wife were at work.”

“She sounds nice,” Keith muttered, his voice barely audible even in the small room.

“Keith?” Lance asked, as concern set in. “Are you okay? This is the third time you said that.” He held the back of his hand up to Keith’s forehead, wincing as he felt the sky-high temperature. “Shit.” He muttered, this time to himself.

_Think back to your first aid class, what causes fevers?_ Lance thought, then decided to speak out loud so that Keith could hear him. “Keith, if you remember anything about first aid, now would be the time to say it.”

He got up, leaving Keith curled up in the corner around nothing. “Think, what would mama do?” He ran through childhood memories from when he was younger, when he had tripped over a basketball and cracked his head open on the cement. She had just kept him in bed then. He thought back to when Veronica was sick, and how he had helped mama make her a bowl of soup.

Here, he didn’t have a kitchen or reasonable food, or even a bed.

“I’m cold,” Keith muttered again. He was leaning his head against the cold wall and wrapping his arms around himself, so Lance walked back and sacrificed some of his body heat to the furnace next to him.

Maybe he would just have to… wait it out?

That didn’t seem very likely.

If they waited it out, Keith would die.

With some stroke of luck, Lance wasn’t sure if it was good or bad yet, the door opened revealing his least favorite Druid at the moment. “I see that they’ve taken a bit of comfort in each other.” She laughed. “How are you boys liking your new and improved limbs?”

Lance wasn’t about to ignore the jab, but Keith shivered against him. “We need medicine.” He said, unconsciously wrapping his arms around Keith more tightly. “Or he’s going to die, and you’ll be out a paladin.”

Tlatka laughed, the grating sound echoing through the little space and hitting his eardrums painfully. “You two act like you’re so important. I’ll definitely have fun bringing you down a notch.”

She nodded to the guards who both entered the cell and grabbed Lance by both of his arms. “Keith,” Lance said, frantically. “I need you to promise me that whatever happens, you’ll let me take the hit.”

“That’s very noble of you, red paladin. But no batter what he does, you _will_ be taking the hit. Several actually.” She smiled, and Lance could tell that she was enjoying this far too much. “Do you think he should watch?” She asked, curling her claws around his chin. “Or do you think he should only be able to hear?”

Lance’s eyes widened, and he tried to wrench his way out of the guards’ grip, but it felt like his arms were encased in cement.

His legs were useless as they drug along the floor, and he was tossed unceremoniously into the wall where he crumpled to the ground. “Letting me go already, huh?” He taunted, despite his mouth filling with blood from when he had bit his tongue after being shoved into a wall. “I bet you’re too worried about going toe-to-toe with the red paladin.”

“No.” Tlatka’s voice echoed around the corner, far faster than she was. “They’re afraid to go toe-to-toe with me.” She smiled and raised her hand, wicked bolts of energy sparking between her fingers.

Lance’s face turned white as a sheet; his first instinct was to run. Then he remembered Keith, and he… he couldn’t leave Keith behind here.

So he stood his ground. The Druid getting closer and closer to him before letting the sparks fly.

Energy slammed into him and he felt pain like he had never imagined before. Getting blown up was definitely up there, but feeling every single one of his muscles want to contract at once was torture. He opened his mouth to scream, but he _couldn’t_.

The energy was sharp, and flew through his chest and down his leg.

The smell of burning flesh filled the hallway as the energy shot through his new prosthetic, burning the skin in contact with the metal. Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

He was left feeling burnt out and hollow, his heart beating quickly and his breaths coming in harsh pants. His eyes opened, and he was on the ground in the hallway. He wasn’t sure exactly when he had fallen, but Tlatka and the two guards were still exactly where they had been.

He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, but the same energy hit him again. He had tried to cry out this time, but the sound was stuck in his throat.

The pain seemed to last longer this time, and once it left him again, he was drenched in a thin layer of sweat. Resting on the floor next to him, he saw his hand twitching from the residual energy. He could feel stray sparks lighting up his body and making him move involuntarily.

“How much can you stand, paladin of red?” Tlatka asked, crouching down to get a closer look at Lance. “This is only twice I’ve done it to you. What would you do three,” her hand sparked with the promise of more pain, “four, or even five times?”

She placed her hand over Lance’s forehead in a surprisingly motherly gesture; it was the softest thing that he had felt from her. “Let’s see, shall we?”

If he had thought before had been bad, he had been wrong.

Lance screamed this time, really screamed. There was pain this time. More pain than just the regular jolt of energy throughout his entire body, there was a _fire_ to this, like he was being burned from the inside out and everything else was being obliterated in its wake.

She released him after too long, maybe two seconds? Maybe three? And contemplated him. Her nails scratched against his scalp where her fingers had singed away some of the hair that had been on his head in the possessive shape of a handprint.

“Not very exciting now, is it?” She asked one of the guards. “You see, after the first couple of times, you get to see what happens.” She lifted Lance’s head by his hair. “They try to scream, and they don’t, and then they just wiggle on the ground. Sometimes, if you do just the right amount of electricity, their eyeballs actually explode out of their heads.”

Lance shook under her, and he wasn’t sure if it was still from the electricity.

“But then they turn stupid.” She dropped Lance’s head abruptly and it slammed into the floor. “They can’t remember anything or hardly speak. They kind of just… sit there, no matter what you do to them.” She stood and turned away from Lance. “They still feel pain, they just can’t do anything about it.” She smiled back down at him, her lips curling over sharpened teeth. “They just sit there, suffering. And then they die.”

“So.”

“Utterly.”

“Boring.”

She looked straight ahead again, stalking away from both Lance and the guards. “Toss him back in.” She commanded, and Lance, limp and boneless, was thrown back inside, slamming against the opposite wall. “Bring the other one out.”

“No.” Lance struggled to find purchase on the floor with his weak and shaking arms to drag himself towards Keith’s form. His leg found traction, sending a tight, searing pain through the ring of skin immediately around the prosthetic protesting vehemently to his movements. “Don’t hurt him!”

Tlatka walked in and blocked Keith from Lance’s view, her black cape blacking out everything Lance needed to see.

“Please! He needs medicine!” Lance screamed as her form bent down. His dry throat easily catching on air and sending him into a coughing fit. “Medicine! You’re going to kill him!” Panic was rising in his chest, turning his scrabbling frantic, trying to get closer and closer to her.

Keith screamed, and it was the worst sound Lance had heard.

Lance saw his legs jerk out, almost kicking Tlatka’s shins out from under her. He was in reach of her ankle, and he wrapped his fingers around the near stick, wanting to snap it. Wanting to save Keith.

“Get off of me!” She screamed, kicking her ankle out of Lance’s grip and hitting him in the face. His head cracked back, vision whiting out and tasting blood in the back of his mouth.

Both of his hands shot up to his face, feeling warm, slick, liquid pushing its way between his fingers. His eyes were watering, mixing with the blood.

“You’re the insolent fool thats going to get him killed.” She said as arms wrapped around him, holding him up, supporting him. “Next time you should think before you act.”

She stalked out of the room, the door slamming shut behind her. “Get them some food, the nutrients in their blood won’t last them much longer, and I want them in their best shape.” Her voice could still be heard behind the door.

“It’s more fun for us that way.”


End file.
